Margin is not markup
These two words get used as if they mean the same thing. They do not, and the gap between them is where a lot of handmade businesses quietly lose money.
Markup is measured against cost. A candle costing £6 with a 50% markup sells for £9.
Margin is measured against the selling price. That same £9 candle has £3 of profit in a £9 sale, which is a 33% margin, not 50%.
Someone aiming for a 50% margin who applies a 50% markup ends up a third short of their target on every single sale. Over a year of markets that is a meaningful amount of money.
Fees come out of the price, not the cost
This is the second thing most pricing calculators get wrong. If you work out a price and then remember the platform takes 9.5%, adding 9.5% on top does not restore your margin — the fee applies to the new, higher price too.
The price has to be solved for rather than built up. Since the fee and the margin are both shares of the final price, the arithmetic is:
price = (cost + fixed fee) ÷ (1 − fee% − margin%)
That is what the calculator does, and it is why the working is shown underneath.
Where the money goes
Selling direct
Markets and your own site keep the most per sale but cost you in pitch fees, time and traffic you have to generate yourself. Put stall fees into monthly overheads rather than into the per-candle fee.
Selling on a marketplace
You are buying access to an audience. The fee is the price of that audience, and it should be in the sale price rather than absorbed out of your margin. Check your own fee breakdown — the percentage components are broadly consistent worldwide but the flat charges and payment processing rates vary by country.
Selling wholesale
A shop typically buys at half your retail price and sells at your retail price. That halving is not negotiable in most trade relationships, so the test is simple: does half your retail still comfortably clear your cost? If not, wholesale is not available to you at your current pricing, and the answer is to fix the retail price or the cost, not to accept a loss for the exposure.
Pricing is not only arithmetic
The calculator gives you a floor built from your own numbers. What the market will actually pay depends on your photography, your branding, your vessel, and who you are selling to. Plenty of makers find they can charge well above the calculated figure. The point of working it out is knowing which decisions are choices and which ones lose you money.