Wholesale Price Calculator — Free Tool for Handmade Makers

Pricing for wholesale without losing money

Wholesale pricing trips up makers more than any other number. A shop wants to stock your products — exciting — but they expect to pay roughly half the retail price so they can mark it back up. If you've priced your retail price on a thin margin, that 50% discount can wipe out your profit or push you below cost.

The handmade trade standard is keystone pricing: the retailer pays 50% of the RRP and doubles it. So your wholesale price needs to leave a real margin even at half of retail. The way to get there is to work backwards from a healthy retail margin: if a candle costs you £4.50 to make and you want a 60% retail margin, your RRP is £11.25 (£4.50 ÷ 0.40), and your wholesale price at 50% off is £5.63 — still £1.13 profit per unit. If your retail margin had only been 40%, the same candle's wholesale price would dip below your cost.

This calculator works that chain for you: enter your true unit cost, the retail margin you want, and the wholesale discount a stockist expects, and it shows the RRP, the wholesale price, and your actual margin at each tier. If the wholesale margin comes out thin or negative, that's the signal to revisit your retail price or production cost before you commit to the account.

Get your unit cost right first — use our recipe costing guide to capture materials, labour, and overheads before you set any price. The Related guides below cover how to negotiate stockist terms, minimum orders, and wholesale agreements.

Related guides