Resin pricing calculator

What a cast piece costs once the resin, the pigment, the mold, the cups and your time are all in it, and the wholesale and retail prices that leaves, against the money that actually arrives after fees.

INPUTS
The commonest first mold and the one most people underestimate: at 10 mm a coaster is a casting, not a coating, so it wants a deep pour resin rather than the table top epoxy in the same kit.
The batch this price divides by.
mm
mm
Pigment and wastage
%
%
Resin left in the cup is resin you paid for. It does not scale down, a single small piece wastes nearly as much as a full tray, which is most of why one-offs cost what they do.
Working time is 180–300 minutes from the moment the two parts meet, and it runs shorter in a warm room and in a bigger mass. Have the mold levelled, the torch to hand and everything taped before you open a bottle.
A price that does not pay you is a price you cannot repeat. Time is charged before any margin is worked out here, because a piece that costs $2.65 in materials and takes 6 minutes of your hands does not cost $2.65.
RESULTS
Sell it for
$24.22
$12.11 wholesale $6.06 it costs you 75% margin on what arrives
Where the money goes, per piece
LinePer pieceWhole batch
Resin and pigment $2.28 $9.10
Cups, sticks, gloves $0.38 $1.50
The mold, over its life $0.18 $0.72
Packaging $0.78 $3.12
Your time $1.88 $7.50
Overhead $0.75 $3.00
Costs you $6.06 $24.22
Lands after fees
$24.22
Break even at
$6.06
A gallon of resin makes 44 pieces at this size, which is the figure worth carrying around: it turns a kit price on a shelf into a cost per thing you sell. The mold, at $0.18 a casting, is the line almost every resin pricing answer leaves out, and it is the one that decides whether a small run is worth pouring at all.

How this is worked out

A price is built from the bottom up here rather than guessed from the top down. The batch is one mix filling the mold you pick, sized by the same pour function the epoxy calculator uses, wastage already in it. That volume is costed at your own kit price per gallon, the pigment at what you paid per hundred grams, and the cups and gloves per pour, per POUR rather than per batch, because a piece built in several lifts throws away several sets of them. The mold is added as its own price divided by the castings it will give before it clouds, which is the line almost every resin costing omits. Packaging and overhead land per piece, and your time is charged BEFORE any margin is worked out, because a piece that costs $2.65 in materials and takes 6 minutes of your hands does not cost $2.65. Then the wholesale price is the unit cost divided by one minus your margin, margin, not markup, the retail price is that times your multiplier, and the platform's cut comes off the top so the last figure is the money that actually arrives.

batch = one mix, wastage included, filling every cavity
materials = resin + pigment, at your own prices
mold = mold price ÷ castings $0.18 a piece here
unit cost = (materials + consumables) ÷ pieces + packaging + mold + time + overhead
wholesale = unit cost ÷ (1 − margin) MARGIN, not markup
retail = wholesale × multiplier
lands = retail − (retail × fee% + fixed fee)

Questions makers ask

How much does it cost to make a resin coaster?
About $2.65 in materials for a 100 mm coaster 10 mm deep, cast 4 at a time, and $5.31 once packaging, the mold over its life and 6 minutes of your hands are in it. Those are different numbers and only the second one is a cost. A set of 4 takes 346 ml of mixed resin including the 10% that stays in the cup.
Should the mold be part of the price?
Yes, divided by the castings it gives. A mold is a tool rather than an ingredient, costing one coaster against a whole $18.00 mold is wrong by a factor of a hundred, and leaving it out entirely is wrong the other way. At roughly 100 castings before it clouds, that mold lands $0.18 on each piece. It looks trivial until you are pricing a run of six, where the mold is a real share of the cost.
What should I charge for resin coasters?
On the worked example above, $10.61 wholesale and $21.22 retail, a 50% margin and a 2× keystone on a cost of $5.31. Your own numbers will differ and the tool is there for that. What does not change is the shape: charge from your cost, not from what the next seller charges, because you cannot see their mold, their resin price or whether they are paying themselves.
Is that margin or markup?
Margin. "50% margin" means 50% of the PRICE is profit, so the price is the cost divided by one minus the margin, not the cost times 1.5. Conflating the two is the commonest pricing error a maker makes and it always errs downward, which is why the difference is worth a sentence.
How many pieces does a gallon of resin make?
About 44 at that coaster size, wastage included. It is a figure worth carrying around, because it turns a kit price on a shelf into a cost per thing you sell, and it is the only honest way to compare a $60 gallon against a $90 one. <a href="/resin/coverage-calculator">The coverage calculator</a> does the same sum for flat work.
Why is wastage in the cost at all?
Because it is resin you paid for. 10% stays in the cup, on the stick and down the sides, and this craft mixes long on purpose: pot life is short, you cannot go back for more mid-pour, and running out leaves a cold-join line that cannot be sanded out. It also does not scale down, a single small piece wastes nearly as much as a full tray, which is most of the reason one-offs cost what they do.
What margin should a resin maker aim for?
Most find they need at least 30% net once a mold wears out, a pour fails and something ships broken. Resin has more of those than the other crafts here, because a piece that cures tacky is a total loss rather than a second, it cannot be remelted, rebatched or sold as a factory reject.
Does a failed pour belong in the price?
In effect, yes, through the margin rather than as a line. There is no honest per-piece figure for it, and a floor of 30% is the practical way to carry it. What you can size exactly is the <a href="/why-is-my-resin-sticky">causes of the failures themselves</a>, most of which are a mis-measured ratio, <a href="/resin/mix-ratio-calculator">the mix ratio calculator</a> is the cheapest insurance on this site.

The same coasters, costed three ways

One batch, 4 coasters from the round coaster mold, 4 cavities, in $18.00 of mold, priced the way it usually gets quoted, then with the hands in it, then with the mold. Each row is the same resin and the same coaster. Only the honesty changes.

Counted Per coaster Whole batch Retail it supports
Materials only $2.65$10.60—
Plus packaging and your time $5.13$20.50$20.50
Plus the mold, over its life $5.31$21.22$21.22

The gap between the first row and the last is what a maker undercharges by when they price from the resin bottle alone. It is not the mold that does most of the damage, $0.18 a casting is small, it is the 6 minutes per coaster, which nobody bills and everybody spends. That mold holds 314 ml when full, and pouring your own is a different set of numbers again.

Read before your next batch

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