By Michael Priest — festival vendor and small-business owner
What does your product really cost to make?
If you tell me your product costs $8 because there is $8 worth of material in it, you may not know what that product actually costs yet.
In Episode 5 of Festival Geeks, Michael Priest begins the Know Your Number™ Pricing Workshop by working through the costs that are easy for new vendors to overlook.
Using a simple product example, we look at:
- Delivered replacement cost of materials
- Products that don’t make it to sellable inventory
- Small production supplies and consumables
- Utilities and machine-use allowances
- Product-specific equipment costs
- The value of your production labor
The goal is not perfect accounting.
The goal is to stop accidentally treating a real cost like it doesn’t exist.
By the end of Episode 5, our example product that appeared to cost $8 has grown to $14.44 just to make.
And that is where we stop.
Because you still haven’t paid to sell it.
Episode 6 continues the workshop with event costs, travel, selling labor, business expenses, card-processing fees, and everything else your price has to carry.
Free companion resource
Use the Know Your Number™ Pricing Workshop with Episodes 5 & 6. It includes the 2-page Pricing Worksheet and 5-page Line-by-Line Guide.
Get the Know Your Number™ Pricing Workshop
Continue with the pricing guides
Use the complete handmade pricing guide, learn how sellable yield changes product cost, and see why active production labor belongs in the math.
New to vending? See the First-Time Vendor Roadmap to see where pricing fits in the complete beginner path.
Festival Geeks
Real Stories. Real Lessons. Real Results.