Macramé & Fiber Arts
Cord and yarn by length, plus real hours of work.
Fiber art is almost pure labor, and that's exactly what makes it hard to price. Cord and yarn are bought by the spool but consumed by the metre — a large wall hanging can eat hundreds of metres — and the piece itself is hours, sometimes days, of knotting or weaving. Price by materials and you'll charge a fraction of the work.
CrafterBy costs cord and yarn by the length you use, tracks dowels, rings, and hardware, and — most importantly — pays you for your time at a real rate, scaled by size. It's the only way fiber work makes sense as a business.
The challenge
- Costing cord and yarn by the spool, not the length used
- Undervaluing many hours of hand-work
- Forgetting dowels, rings, and mounting hardware
- No consistent price across sizes
How CrafterBy helps
- Cost cord and yarn by the length used
- Add labor at a rate you set — the biggest cost
- Track dowels, rings, and hardware
- Scale the price by size from one template
How to price your Macramé & Fiber Arts work
- 1Add cord and yarn as materials priced per metre.
- 2Enter the length the piece consumes (large pieces use a lot).
- 3Add dowels, rings, beads, and mounting hardware.
- 4Add your hours at a labor rate that respects the work.
- 5Set a margin and scale the template for other sizes.
Worked example
Large macramé wall hanging
- Cotton cord, ~180 m$21.60
- Dowel + hardware + beads$6.50
- Labor — knotting + finishing (7 hr @ $25)$175.00
Seven hours of knotting is the product. Priced honestly, large fiber pieces are premium items.
Common pricing mistakes
Pricing by cord cost and treating the hours of knotting as free.
Buying cord by the spool and guessing the length per piece.
Charging the same for a small and a large piece.
What you'll cost & track
Materials you'd track
Equipment run-cost
Price products like
Frequently asked questions
How do I price macramé and fiber art?
Cost cord and yarn by the length used, add hardware, and — above all — pay yourself for the hours of hand-work at a real rate. Fiber art is labor-dominated, so labor is most of the price. Scale by size.
How do I know how much cord a piece uses?
Track it once and reuse it: note the length a given design consumes, store it as the recipe, and price every repeat from that. CrafterBy remembers the length so you're not re-measuring each time.
How do I set an hourly rate for slow hand-work?
Pick a rate that covers the income and overhead you need for your billable hours — the same rate you'd use for any craft. Slow work simply means more hours at that rate, and the price should reflect it.