Since starting to sell my stained glass artworks I’ve struggled a lot with pricing. Pricing stained glass is difficult. It takes a ton of time, costs a lot of money in materials, and yet (especially when you’re first starting out) it can feel wrong slapping a high price tag on your work. .
So I thought I would share how I price stained glass art in case you find it helpful. I’ve racked my brain for months to get to this point, and I still question my pricing all the time. However, having some kind of formula has helped a ton. If I can save you from a little torment of your own, I’m all for it.
Keep in mind, this is just the way I price my stained glass. At the end of the day it’s your work and you price it however you like best.
For me, I take into account just a few things like how much time it took me to complete, what my hourly rate is, and how much money I spent on materials.
So let’s get into it…
Find Average Time Spent
To figure out how much time it takes you to complete a piece, you could simply just time yourself. However this isn’t always practical. Stained glass takes days to complete so you’ll have to “clock in” each day and remember to “clock out” so you can look back and see how long it took you in total hours to complete.
This can get even more complicated if you’re working on multiple projects at once.
To make this easier for myself I timed myself for a number of projects, then averaged out the amount of time it takes me per individual glass piece in the project.
I timed myself on 5 different projects, three suncatchers and two larger panels. Each of the projects were varying in complexity and size.
What I found was that it took me between 17 minutes and 22 minutes per individual glass piece.
To find this number I took the total hours a project took and multiplied it by 60 (because there’s 60 minutes in an hour) and then divided it by the number of glass pieces in that project.
Example:
One project with 68 pieces took me 22 hrs to complete.
22 x 60 = 1,320 minutes
1,320 divided by 68 = 19.41
So it took me 19.41 minutes per each individual glass piece.
As mentioned above I did this with 5 different projects varying in size and complexity and got an average of 20 minutes per glass piece.
Now I know that if a piece has 20 glass pieces, it will take me roughly 400 minutes to complete. 400 divided by 60 (number of minutes in 1 hour) is 6.6. So roughly 6.5 hours to complete.
Knowing this number has made pricing my pieces that much easier. It has also made it far easier to set client expectations when discussing commissions. Once I can explain that the complexity of the piece will determine the price, more so than the size of the piece, they are usually very understanding and either okay with simplifying the design down, or paying the high price.
However, pricing your time like that does create one issue and that is – the size of the piece. People expect to pay far less for something small, and are okay with spending more on something large.
Even when you calculate your material costs, which we’ll get to, the biggest factor in price is your time.
To balance this out for smaller pieces, I charge less per hour. Which means, I make less per hour on smaller projects.
Set Your Hourly Rate
This is the amount of money you would like to make for each hour you put in. This number is entirely up to you, and you can set it at whatever makes sense for you.
Here are some things I considered when setting my hourly rate::
What is your skill level and quality of work?
Before I ever sold my first glass piece (other than to one or two friends that just wanted to support me by having me make them something, in which they paid very little) I took one full year to improve my skills. How quickly you start selling pieces is entirely up to you, but now when I price my pieces I take into account all that time and materials that I spent getting to the skill level I’m at now. It was a very expensive year, but because of that I now feel confident in my skill level and in my quality of work.
What is the demand for your product?
This is where marketing and having a following can make a huge difference in not just how much art you sell, but how much you make off each piece that you sell. It isn’t to say that you should sell yourself short just because you’re still working on creating that “buzz” about what you’re making. Instead, it’s more about how you can increase your pay per hour once that buzz exists.
What is the average hourly income for a stained glass artist?
According to Glassdoor the average wage for both independent stained glass artist and studio stained glass artist is around 56k/year and 25 to 40 dollars an hour. Of course, take this information with a grain of salt as it’s only so accurate. Also, some of these salaries are based on stained glass artists that work primarily in window installation and other larger projects that require more skills and knowledge.
What is the market value of your product?
As an independent artist it’s important to do a little competitor research to see what other similar artists are able to sell their art for. Market value is simply the value that the general public will pay for a particular product. So if you see an artist that is constantly selling out of their stained glass, it’s a great idea to see where their price points are. Similarly, what are artists who AREN’T selling pricing their works at?
With these things in mind, I set my hourly rate to $25/hour. This is what I try to earn when pricing my pieces plus material expenses. However, as I mentioned above, I personally adjust this rate based on the overall size of my projects. Here’s why…
Below is an image of two suncatchers I made. The one on the left is 2” in diameter larger than the one on the right, and is also of an original design whereas the smaller one is of the “seed of life” – a common design that I did not put time into creating.
If I were to stick with the standard $25/hr for both of these pieces, the smaller piece would be priced at $275. A whole $40 more than the larger, original suncatcher.
The material cost on these were $60 and $25. So that $35 difference was not going to do much to match the price with perceived value. I had to adjust my hourly rate.
This ties into the question of market value, and I’m not at all saying you should do this, too. I’m just sharing how my brain operates around all of this and why I make the decisions on pricing that I do.
So on smaller pieces, i.e. designs that will fit on a piece of standard 8.5×11 paper, I typically charge more like $15-$20/hr in my pricing.
It’s sort of a catch-22 scenario because I make less money on smaller pieces, but there are more people able to purchase at those price points. Especially in this economy!
Add in Material Costs
Last, but certainly not least I add in the cost of materials.
I don’t track this down to a science… at all. I know how much I spend on a 12×12 sheet of glass on average, and how much a spool of solder and came costs. Using that information I literally look at a piece and go “that took about this much material” LOL.
I could certainly track this better, and when I do get it down I’ll update this article to include how.
On the suncatchers above, I added in $60 for materials on the moon because it’s a larger piece and takes more glass, as well as has a bevel. On the smaller suncatcher I charged $25. To be honest, $35 probably would have been more accurate.
One thing I’ve considered doing and just haven’t yet, is finding the average price per square inch of materials. That way all I have to do is know the size of a piece, find how many square inches and that’ll give me a good estimate of material costs. Of course even with this method you have to account for special materials like bevels, gems, and more expensive artisan glass.
And there you have it. There’s my brain dump of thoughts for pricing your stained glass suncatchers and panels.
I hope this information helps if you’re like me and feel really weird when it comes to pricing your stained glass art.
Thanks so much for the information. I have a question. Concerning material cost of “glass” only for setting my retail sell prices. How can I determine my cost for individual glass pieces used in projects? Given the glass prices vary. Any advice greatly appreciated as I have several unpriced pieces unable to confidently price now for sell.
Hi Josh! Great question! It’s completely up to you on how specific you want to get. If you have a piece of 12×12 glass that you used in your project, and you used say – a 5×5 inch piece of it – you could get super detailed and divide the square inch by the total amount the sheet cost. This would give you a price per square in. OR if you’re like me and you’re a little more lax with your material pricing, you can simply use an average per square inch based on a typical price per a 12×12 sheet of glass. I do this and then charge more for artisan or one-of-a-kind glass. I’m actually working on a commission now where we discussed one price, but because the glass I ended up going with is far more expensive, the final price will go up. Just keep in mind it’s totally up to you. There’s no wrong way to do it 🙂