Material cost (COGS): estimating cost and pricing your work
On the Maker plan, Ellie estimates what a piece costs to make and suggests a price — here's how to read it, where to find it per craft, and how to fix a partial estimate.
Ellie can estimate what a piece actually costs you to make, and suggest what to charge for it.
Heads up: This is a Maker-plan feature. On the free plan, the cost panel shows an Upgrade prompt instead of numbers — see Free plan limits & what upgrading unlocks.
What the panel adds up
The material cost panel totals what went into the piece — for a Resin recipe that's the resin, the colorants, and an overhead allowance; for a Candle recipe it's the wax, vessel, wick, fragrance, and any colorant, plus overhead. From that it offers a suggested price — by default a 3× markup on materials — as a starting point for pricing your work.
Heads up: where you see this differs by craft. On a Resin recipe, the cost panel lives right on the recipe's page. On a Candle recipe, look for the estimate in the wizard while you're building the recipe, and again on the production run once you start one — a saved candle recipe's own page doesn't carry a cost line.
Fixing a partial estimate
If the estimate looks incomplete, it's usually because Ellie's missing a number. To round it out, fill in the purchase price and quantity fields on whatever the recipe uses — for a Resin recipe that's:
- the resin's purchase price,
- the mold's volume,
- and the cost fields on your colorants.
For a Candle recipe, it's the cost fields on your wax, vessel, wick, and fragrance. Once those are in, the estimate fills out.
The same panel, on a pour or production run
When you complete a pour or production run, this same breakdown shows up there as Pour cost — the real cost of that specific piece.