Craft Fair Profit Calculator

Most makers do their craft fair maths after the event by counting cash takings and feeling either pleased or disappointed. The uncomfortable truth comes out when you subtract the stall fee, the petrol both ways, the materials cost of what you sold, and the eight hours you spent setting up, selling and packing down. A 'great day' with £400 in sales can quietly turn into £6 an hour once everything is accounted for. This calculator forces the honest version: stall cost plus travel plus materials plus accommodation against revenue, with your hourly rate at the bottom in black and white.

The default values reflect a typical UK indoor or village hall fair: £50 stall (church halls and small markets often charge £30 to £60, larger town centres £80 to £150), 20 mile round trip at HMRC's 45p mileage rate, eight hours total time including setup, twelve items sold at £25 average. With £100 in materials cost across the day, that scenario nets a £100 profit and £12.50 an hour - above minimum wage, below most freelance rates, and only viable if you genuinely enjoy the day.

Travel is the most under-counted line. The 45p per mile HMRC rate is not a guess at fuel; it is the mileage allowance that covers fuel, wear and tear, insurance and depreciation. A 60-mile round trip at 45p is £27, and most sellers either ignore this entirely or only count fuel at maybe £8. Use the proper rate. Accommodation hits if the fair starts before 9am and is more than an hour away - sleeping in the car at a service station will save you £80 but is rarely worth it after one attempt.

Materials cost should be the cost of items you actually sold, not your full stock. If you took £600 of stock and sold £300, your materials line is roughly half (assuming consistent margins). Some sellers prefer to track all stock as overhead and absorb unsold stock into a 'stock at hand' figure for the next event. Either approach works, but you must pick one and use it consistently. Mixing them is how people accidentally double-count and convince themselves a fair was profitable when it was not.

If the calculator shows you a real hourly rate below £10 and you have done the same fair three times, the data is telling you something. It is not necessarily 'stop doing fairs', it might be 'stop doing this specific fair' or 'change what you sell'. High-margin small items (greeting cards, earrings, candles) almost always outperform low-margin large items (paintings, ceramics, large prints) at general craft fairs because foot traffic skews to impulse spend at £5 to £25 per buyer. Items priced above £40 sell better at curated maker markets or directly online via [Etsy](/etsy-fee-calculator).

Also check whether the fair is brand-building or income-generating; some sellers run a stall at the local Christmas market specifically to drive Instagram followers and Etsy sales for the next two months, accepting a thin margin on the day. If that is the model, the calculator's hourly rate is the wrong metric. Track instead how many email signups, business cards taken, or follow-up custom orders the day produced. Most sellers do a mix of both kinds of event, knowing which is which.