Leathercraft
Hides by the square foot, hardware, and real stitch time.
Leather is priced by the square foot, but a hide is an irregular shape full of belly, bug bites, and brand marks you can't use — so the leather in a wallet costs more than its area suggests. Add thread, hardware, edge finish, and the hours of hand-stitching, and a 'simple' wallet is anything but cheap.
CrafterBy costs leather by the area you actually use, adds a waste allowance for the parts of the hide you discard, tracks hardware and thread, and pays you for stitch time. Small goods and bags both get a defensible price.
The challenge
- Not costing leather by the square foot used
- Ignoring the waste around a hide's usable area
- Forgetting hardware, thread, and edge finish
- Undervaluing hours of hand-stitching
How CrafterBy helps
- Cost leather by the square foot used
- Add a waste allowance for unusable hide area
- Track hardware, thread, dye, and edge paint
- Add stitching labor at your rate
How to price your Leathercraft work
- 1Add each leather as a material priced per square foot.
- 2Enter the area a pattern uses, plus a waste allowance for hide defects.
- 3Add thread, hardware, and edge finish as components.
- 4Add cutting, stitching, and finishing labor at your rate.
- 5Set a margin for overhead and profit.
Worked example
Hand-stitched bifold wallet
- Veg-tan leather, 1.6 sq ft @ $9.00$14.40
- Thread, edge paint, burnishing gum$2.10
- Waste allowance (hide defects)$3.20
- Labor — cut, stitch, finish (2.5 hr @ $28)$70.00
Hand-stitching is hours of work; priced honestly, a bifold is a $150+ item, not a $40 one.
Common pricing mistakes
Costing leather by pattern area and ignoring the unusable parts of the hide.
Treating hand-stitching as free because it's 'relaxing'.
Forgetting edge finishing, which is real time and consumables.
What you'll cost & track
Materials you'd track
Equipment run-cost
Price products like
Frequently asked questions
How do I price handmade leather goods?
Cost leather by the square foot used plus a waste allowance for hide defects, add thread and hardware, then pay yourself for cutting, stitching, and finishing. Hand-stitched goods are labor-dominated, so labor drives the price.
How do I account for leather waste?
A hide is irregular and full of unusable areas, so the leather a pattern consumes understates the leather you buy. Add a waste allowance (often 20–30%) so the good cuts pay for the scrap.
Machine-stitched vs hand-stitched — how does price differ?
Hand-stitching takes far longer, so its labor cost is much higher; that's the premium. Cost each method by its actual time and the price difference explains itself.