For wheel-throwing, hand-building & sculpture studios — covers clay, glaze, kiln firings, instructor pay, overhead, and your target margin.
Enter your class details above — results update instantly.
Class Setup: Choose your class format (wheel throwing typically uses more clay and smaller class sizes than hand building). Enter your actual enrolled headcount and your seat capacity — the tool shows you the revenue difference between a full class and your current enrollment. Enter the number of sessions for a multi-week course or leave at 1 for a single drop-in.
Materials: Set your per-student clay allocation per session and your cost per pound (use your actual bulk price if you buy in bags or boxes). If you recycle trimmings and slop through a pugmill, enter your recovery percentage to reduce the effective clay cost. Add your estimated glaze and consumables costs per seat.
Firings: If your ticket price includes finished take-home pieces, enter bisque and glaze firing costs per student (divide your kiln's cost-per-load by the number of student pieces that fit). If you charge firing as a separate line item, set both to zero.
Labor & Overhead: Enter your instructor's hourly rate, how many instructors the class needs, and any paid prep/cleanup time. For fixed overhead, enter your total monthly studio costs and how many paying class sessions you run per month — the tool allocates overhead proportionally to each session.
Results: You'll see total variable cost per student, allocated fixed overhead per seat, your all-in cost per student, and both a break-even price and a recommended price including your target margin. You'll also see full-class totals at actual enrollment and at full capacity.
Most pottery studio owners set prices by looking at competitors or "what feels right" — which means they often under-price wheel-throwing classes that carry high material and kiln costs, or over-price hand-building classes. This tool replaces intuition with a cost-up calculation: you set your actual costs and margin, and it tells you the number.
Use it when: launching a new class format; reviewing annual pricing; adjusting for a new kiln or instructor; deciding whether a drop-in vs. multi-week series structure makes sense; evaluating whether a smaller class (6 students vs. 10) still covers overhead at your current price.
All costs are computed from your inputs:
This tool provides cost-based estimates to guide pricing decisions. Actual profitability depends on enrollment, local market rates, and costs not entered here (e.g. payment processing fees, credit card chargebacks, makeup sessions). Treat results as a starting baseline, not a guarantee — validate against your own bookkeeping.
In a typical wheel-throwing session, beginners use roughly 1–3 lbs of clay per student; hand-building classes often use 2–5 lbs. The default in this calculator is 2 lbs, but set it to match your studio's actual clay allocation per seat. If you buy a 25 lb bag for around $25–$32 and split it across students, divide accordingly.
Yes — if your ticket price includes take-home finished pieces, you must cover both firings. Some studios charge firing fees separately after the fact; if yours does, set those inputs to zero and note the firing fee separately on your booking page. Including firings in your ticket is simpler for customers and prevents sticker shock at pickup.
Take your total monthly fixed costs (rent, utilities, insurance, marketing, equipment depreciation) and divide by the number of revenue-generating sessions you run per month. For example, $1,200/month ÷ 20 sessions = $60 overhead per session. This calculator does that automatically; just enter your monthly total and session count.
Industry guidance typically targets 10–20% gross margin after covering all variable and allocated fixed costs. Community co-ops often price closer to break-even; private studios with premium equipment and instruction commonly aim for 15–25%. Use the margin slider here to model different scenarios.
Yes. If you reclaim and recycle a portion of unused or trim clay through a pugmill or recycling bucket, your effective clay cost per student drops. This calculator has a clay recovery percentage input — enter, for example, 40% if you recycle roughly 40% of the clay students don't use. Studios that invested in a pugmill typically recover 30–50% of clay.
The break-even price is the minimum you must charge to cover all costs at a given enrollment. The recommended price applies your target profit margin on top of that, so the studio earns above costs. Always price at or above the recommended figure — pricing at break-even leaves nothing for slow months, equipment failure, or missed sessions.
Wheel-throwing classes typically cost more to run because they require one wheel per student (limiting class size), more clay (beginners waste more on the wheel), and often more instructor time per student. Hand-building classes can accommodate more students with less equipment. This usually means wheel-throwing tickets should be priced 10–20% higher for similar margins.