Lately there has been an interesting thread on the Clayart email list regarding pot pricing and various methods for calculating prices. It really is a thorny subject, with the factors of locale, appreciation, materials, fuel, time, skill, market, demographic, etc… all playing a part, then further complicated by the potter’s personal subjective views.

One method I did not hear mentioned was the ‘by the load’ method. Once you have figured out all of your costs, you calculate how much you need to make per kiln load, rather than per pot. Say for example you have decided you need to make $5000.00 per load to maintain (or improve on) your lifestyle. Now, calculate how many cubic inches or cm of firing space your kiln contains. If your kiln is 0.3 cubic meters, then that would be just about 330,000 cubic cm of space. Now subtract from this the space taken by shelves and supports, and ample room between pieces for air flow during firing.

Since this is an example, I won’t go into detail, but estimate that after shelves, supports, and air flow space are removed, you end up with roughly a little over half of the original number, let’s say 200,000 cubic cm. This gives you your base number to work from. At $5000 per kiln load, you will get 0.025 dollars per cubic cm.

If you fire a theoretical cup that takes up 10x10x10 cm of space, including the wads, etc… then that cup is 1000 cubic cm, and would be priced at $25.

This is for very simple stuff, but not all things are theoretical cups. There are handles and spouts, carving, complex glazes, lugs, lids, labor intensive production methods, losses during firing, all sorts of things that factor in and modify the base theoretical figure. At the very least you end up with a good base figure to start with.

Put on a handle, that’s extra space in the kiln as well as extra time in production. You could add a modifier of  x1.5 to your base figure, to get a price of $37.50 for your theoretical handled cup. On the other end, if you are making tea caddies for powdered tea, which are possibly the most expensive tea implement for its size, you might add x50 to the base figure. So a tea caddy that is 6x6x10cm, or 360 cm with a base price of $9, would be $450 after the modifier is calculated in. (Don’t feel guilty charging this much, the little bag for the caddy alone will cost you at least $150, and the ivory lid with gold leaf about as much. It’s better to have the customer handle these things.)

Anyway, just one way to do it….