95: Pricing Your Work Without the Anxiety

October 01, 2026

Pricing Your Work Without the Anxiety

Quick poll. Are you an Ostrich? Maybe a Peacock? Possibly a Chaser? None of that makes sense yet - but it will. And at least one of those is going to sound uncomfortably familiar before the series is done.

This episode kicks off a four-part pricing series. Not the math - the math isn't actually the problem. Most makers can do the calculation correctly. The problem is what happens between the ears after the calculation is done. That something - the thing that overrides the number the math produced and puts a completely different one on the tag - falls into four very specific patterns. Each one has its own logic, its own emotional root, and its own specific fix that doesn't require becoming a different person.

This episode covers what pricing actually is for a maker - and why it's fundamentally different from pricing a commodity. A commodity has a market rate. You look it up and charge it. When a maker puts a price on their own work they're making a public statement about what they believe their skill, time, and expertise are worth. That's not just about the object. That's a declaration. That's the exposure. And the skill of separating that number from the self-assessment - which the garment industry made very clear had real professional stakes - is what most pricing advice never touches.

The four patterns are introduced: Avoidance, Fear, No Anchor, and Identity. The series goes deep into each one over the next four episodes. The Income Math free PDF - which connects pricing directly to the portfolio career framework - is linked in the show notes and at www.virginialeighstudio.com/incomemath.

The VirginiaLeighStudio Home page:

https://www.virginialeighstudio.com

The Income Math Free pdf:

www.virginialeighstudio.com/incomemath

The Fabric & Fiber Studio:

https://www.virginialeighstudio.com/thestudio

Chapters

00:00 - Are You an Ostrich?

02:12 - You Did the Math. Then Something Happened.

03:37 - Thirty Years of Watching This Play Out

04:16 - What Pricing Actually Is Beyond a Number on a Tag

05:05 - Pricing a Handmade Piece Is a Declaration Not a Calculation

06:20 - What the Garment Industry Taught About Separating the Number from the Self-Assessment

07:08 - Four Patterns, Each With Its Own Root and Its Own Fix

10:34 - Why This Connects to the Portfolio Career and the Income Math Download

Connect with Virginia:

Website = https://www.virginialeighstudio.com

Instagram = https://www.instagram.com/virginialeighstudio/

Facebook = https://www.facebook.com/virginialeighstudio

Episode Transcript

E95 Transcript
Quick poll - Are you an Ostrich?
Maybe you're a Peacock. Or an Insider. Or possibly a Chaser?
Alright, I realize none of that makes any sense at all - yet. But stick with me because over the next couple weeks it will. And at least one of those is going to sound uncomfortably familiar.
We're talking about pricing today. Not the math itself - because the actual math isn't the problem. Something underneath the math is and that’s what we need to pull apart. So, let’s put the calculators away, and just look at how we feel when we price our stuff - or even worse, how we feel when people start questioning it. YIKES!
Maybe you’ve done this before. I certainly have.
You sit down and do the math. Materials. Time. Overhead. A reasonable margin. Then you hit enter. And then you look at the total and write a completely different number on the tag.
This didn’t happen because you thought the calculator was faulty and the number was wrong. It’s because the number felt like too much. Or too little. Or too something. And so, you adjusted it. Down, usually. Sometimes up for the wrong reasons. But almost never based on pure real numbers.
That difference between the calculator and the tag is not a math problem. Most people do the calculations properly. The issue is something that happens between our ears after the calculation is done. Something that over thinks it. Overrides it.
I’ve been pricing work for over thirty years and I’ve watched others do the same - in classrooms, at shows, in professional settings where the stakes were pretty high. I've seen that ‘something’ rear it’s ugly head a lot and I have learned that it falls into four very specific patterns. Four categories of pricing behavior. Each one has its own logic. Each one has its own emotional root. And each one has its own specific fix.
Over the next several episodes I’m going to break down each one. But today I want to spend some time on what's actually underneath all of it. Because if you understand the root you'll recognize yourself faster when we get there. And that’s the whole point – recognize which one tend to lean toward and learn what to do about it.
Let's talk about what pricing actually is – you know, beyond a number on a price tag. Because most pricing advice treats it as just that – a simple number on a tag. That’s partially true – but it’s not the whole truth.
So, the standard advice goes something like this. Calculate the cost of all your materials. Calculate your time at a reasonable hourly rate. Add those two together. Now add your overhead. Add the profit margin. That's your price. Simple.
And it is simple. The math is not complicated. A ten-year-old could do it.
So, what’s getting in the way when we go to put a price on our art?
First, let’s acknowledge that pricing a handmade piece is not the same as pricing a commodity. A commodity has a market rate. You look it up. You charge it. Done. Your feelings about yourself are not involved.
When a maker puts a price on their own work - they are doing something completely different. They are making a public statement - visible to anyone who picks up the piece or reads the listing - about what they believe their skill and time and expertise are worth. It’s no longer just a statement about the object. It's about how they see themselves as a maker.
That's why it feels so vulnerable. That's why a perfectly competent maker who has been at this craft for fifteen years will still hesitate before writing a number on a tag. It's not the tag. It's the declaration. It’s the exposure.
I watched this play out professionally for years in the garment industry. It wasn’t quite as personal, but it did hit hard sometimes. Pricing decisions had real consequences there - not just for the individual but for the whole line, the whole season, the whole business. And what I learned was that the makers and designers who kept their sanity intact weren't necessarily the ones with the best prices. They were the ones who had separated the number from the self-assessment. Who could look at a piece and price it for what it was and what it did - not for what charging that number said about them.
That separation is a skill in itself. And most pricing advice or pricing programs never touch it.
So, let’s look at what’s underneath that ability, or inability, to separate oneself from the dollar figure. Here are the four patterns I've watched play out over and over. Every single one of these has a completely understandable root so they are not personal judgements. Every one of them made sense at some point. And every one of them has a specific fix that doesn't require you to morph into a different person.
The first pattern is Avoidance. This is the maker who won't look at the real numbers at all. This isn’t about laziness or lack of knowledge. It’s because looking at the real numbers produces something that feels impossible. So, they don't look. They estimate. They hope for the best. They make sure they get a little more than what they paid for materials and call that a win. The math never actually gets done because if it did, they'd have to either charge an uncomfortable number or admit they're working for almost nothing. It’s easier not to know for sure.
The second pattern is Fear. This is actually the largest category and in some ways the most painful one to be in. Because this maker can do the math. They know what the number should be. And then something happens - a customer makes a face, a competitor charges less, a friend expects a discount, a show ends with unsold inventory - and the number they knew was right suddenly feels wrong. The math gets overridden by the moment. Every time.
The third pattern is No Anchor. This maker genuinely doesn't know what a fair number looks like and hasn't found a reliable way to find out. Ask them how they landed on their price and they can't really explain it. They guessed. They looked at a competitor and priced just under. They calculated hours and multiplied by a number that felt reasonable without checking whether anyone would actually pay it. The information needed to price correctly simply isn't there yet.
And the fourth pattern is the most interesting one. Identity. This is the maker whose price is serving a self-image rather than the piece or the market. And here's what makes this category different from the other three - this person doesn’t really feel any angst about their pricing. They think they've already got it right for the image they are trying to present. That’s a very different conversation than someone who knows they're stuck and wants help.
Over the next four episodes we're going into each of these in detail. The specific personalities inside each category, what's actually driving the behavior and what fixes it.
Before we get there, I want to say one more thing about why this series matters right now specifically.
We've spent the last several episodes talking about the portfolio career. The four income types. The common thread. Building from the center out. Basically, all of it is built on the knowledge of where the money comes from and how much is produced in each stream. Charging properly for your sewn goods or art is vital in making a placement decision.
We all want to make as much as possible from our handmade business without crashing. So, we first need to figure that part out so we can put it in the right spot, and plan to either maintain or build that part of our portfolio career.
We need to get the numbers right so we know where each stream actually belongs in the portfolio. It’s important to know what it's actually earning versus what it could earn.
Pricing is that missing piece. A stream that's stuck in Fill-In because the revenue feels small might belong in Steady if the pricing were right. You can't build the portfolio accurately without getting the income right inside each stream, and that comes down to proper pricing in the handmade portion.
That's why we're here. And that's why I wanted to do a pricing series.
If you haven't already downloaded The Income Math - the free PDF that walks through the portfolio framework - grab it now. The link is in the show notes. And on the back of it you'll find the next step for anyone who wants to go deeper on this before the series wraps up.
Right now you're probably running one of those patterns through your head. Maybe you already know which one. Maybe you're hoping it's not the one you think it is. Either way - good. That recognition is exactly where we need to start.
Here's what I want you to know going into the next four weeks. Every single one of these patterns has a fix and not a difficult one at that. No complicated formulas. No personality overhauls. Just a specific, learnable fix that doesn't require you to morph into someone you're not.
We start next week with Avoidance. Then Fear - which is the big one. Then No Anchor. And last - the Identity patterns, which are the most fun to talk about because those makers don't think they need this conversation at all.
Meet me here next week and we’ll get started.

95: Pricing Your Work Without the Anxiety

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