Wholesale is not half of retail.
If the shop needs 50 percent, you start from a real unit, not a copied sticker.
Direct / retail path
$28 mug
The number on the stall and the site.
This price has to hold booth fees, platform cuts, a single mailer, and the hour you talk to one buyer. It is not a vanity sticker you later cut in half.
Shop / wholesale path
$14 is not a cost
Half of retail is a shop margin, not your math.
The shop needs room. Your kiln still needs power. If $14 cannot cover the next bisque, you did not get wholesale ready. You got emptied.
Journal · Wholesale
If the shop needs 50 percent of a sticker you copied, you are making a gift, not a wholesale price. The copy-paste move is everywhere: look at a mug you like, put $28 on yours, then agree to $14 because that is what wholesale means in a Facebook thread. Wholesale means the shop can live. It does not mean you start from a number you liked on a shelf.
$28 ÷ 2 = $14
This is the equation that empties studios. It has no clay, no firing, no packing carton, and no Net 30 in it.
Andre had a $28 mug. The shop wanted half. After clay, glaze, and kiln power, his unit was already $11.20, and that was before he counted the hour at the wheel as labor. Half of $28 is $14. That leaves $2.80 to cover packing for the shop, Net 30, freight, seconds, and the next bisque. $2.80 is not a wholesale margin. It is a leak.
Andre mug, in order
Start from the unit. Then look at the shop. Never the other way around.
Materials and firing
Clay, glaze, kiln share. His number: $11.20. If you skip kiln power because the bill comes later, you are costing a studio that runs on air.
Bench time
Throw, trim, handle, glaze. Forty-eight minutes at $22 is $17.60. Suddenly the mug is not an $11 object. It is already past $28 before a shop exists.
Seconds
One in eight warps or pinholes. Firsts carry that, or the wholesale price is a firsts-only fantasy.
Packing for a retailer
Not a padded mailer for one mug. A carton, dividers, tape, a packing list, and the hour you spend on twelve. Put it on the twelve.
Terms
Net 30 means you funded the shop for a month. Cash-flow is not a feeling. If you need that money for clay next week, Net 30 is a cost. Some makers add a small term premium. Some refuse the terms. Write which one you are.
Then look at the shop
They need their margin to rent the room and pay the buyer who stands there. If your wholesale cannot clear your unit plus a named margin, you do not take the order. You do not split $28 and hope.
| Mug math | Retail path | Wholesale path |
|---|---|---|
| True unit (materials, kiln, labor, seconds) | $31.40 | $31.40 |
| Path extras (booth or shop carton) | $4.10 | $2.20 |
| Fees / terms drag | $2.00 | $1.40 |
| Unit on that path | $37.50 | $35.00 |
| Price he had been using | $28.00 | $14.00 |
| Named margin left | none | none |
Two different prices can both be honest if two different paths are costed. What cannot be honest is a retail sticker invented for Instagram and a wholesale sticker that is half of that. Retail has booth fees, platform fees, and packing for a single customer. Wholesale has cartons, terms, and a shop that will not sell your mug for $14 if they paid $14. They need room. You need a unit that still exists after they take it.
Do not take the order
If wholesale is under the unit
Say no. A shop order that loses money at 40 mugs loses more money at 200. Volume is not a fix for a hole.
If you do not know the unit yet
Do not send a line sheet. Cost the SKU in the workbook first. A template cannot save a number you never wrote.
If they want your retail look at wholesale money
That is a different product: fewer finishes, a simpler glaze, a mug you can actually repeat. Design the wholesale SKU. Do not donate the retail one.
If Net 30 breaks your clay order
Ask for deposit, or add the float, or skip the account. Shops that cannot hear that are asking you to be their bank.
A shop buyer is not your enemy in this math. They have rent, breakage, and a floor that has to earn. When they ask for 50 percent they are telling you their constraint. Your job is to know yours. If both constraints cannot live in one number, the SKU does not belong in that room. That is a clean no. It is cleaner than a yes you resent in March when the check still has not arrived and the kiln is already on for their reorder.
Reorder math is where people get hopeful. The first order was a favor to get in the door. The second order is supposed to fix it. It does not, unless the unit changed. If you agreed to $14 on a $35 path, the 80-mug reorder is a larger hole. Raise the wholesale number before the second carton, or stop. Do not wait until you like the shop personally. Liking them does not fire the kiln.
The Wholesale Pricing Template is for makers who already know the unit and need a sheet they can send with a line sheet. If you do not know the unit yet, start with the workbook. $39 for the costing sheet. The template is a separate tool for the conversation with the shop, not a shortcut around the mug.
Get the workbook · $39See the wholesale template
All journalThe booth fee belongs in the barShipping supplies are not overhead
Price wholesale from a real unit.
