Feature

Discount Planning for Makers

A sale should not quietly erase the value of your time. Test any discount before you commit.

Discount planning lets you test how a price reduction affects your profit, margin, and hourly wage before running a sale. Because material costs and platform fees stay the same, a 20% discount can reduce your profit by far more than 20%.

The hidden cost of discounts

When you sell handmade goods, a 20% discount does not reduce your profit by 20%. Because your material costs and platform fees stay the same, the discount comes entirely out of your margin - and often out of your wages.

A product with a healthy 50% margin can drop to a loss-making level with a seemingly modest discount. MakerTools helps you see that before you hit publish.

How discount planning works in MakerTools

• Safe, caution, and loss zones. Enter a discount percentage and immediately see whether the reduced price still protects profit, margin, and your hourly wage benchmarks.
• Full breakdown. See the discounted sale price split into fees, materials, profit, and buyer savings at a glance.
• Wage impact. Discounts reduce your effective hourly rate. MakerTools shows the before and after so you can decide whether the volume trade-off is worth it.
• Data-driven decisions. Instead of guessing whether a sale will work, you see the exact numbers for every scenario.

Common discount mistakes

Discounting without knowing your floor. Every product has a minimum price below which you lose money. If you do not know yours, any discount is a gamble.

Treating all products the same. A 15% discount on a high-volume, low-cost item might be fine. The same discount on a labour-intensive custom piece could mean you are effectively paying to work.

Ignoring the wage effect. When your profit shrinks, your hourly wage shrinks with it. If you are already below minimum wage, any discount deepens the problem.

Run smarter sales

With MakerTools, you can plan your sales strategy with confidence. Test different discount levels, compare products, and choose the promotions that protect your business. Your craft deserves that respect.