Tufting has become a booming business and so many artists have started offering custom rugs.
Are you also thinking about selling your rugs? How much will you charge for it? Pricing your rug is different from making rugs and its not everyones speciality nor hobby. Here is a quick guide on what to charge and where to sell.
The better you understand how the hand tufted rug market works and where your rug fits into this picture.
Just like any other product, hand tufted rugs are priced according to certain criteria such as your resume, selling history and your reputation. So where to start if you dont have all this yet.
Some say to take your costs and multiply that by three, others say to give yourself an hourly rate and others make a combination and add up investments in the growth of your business.
For those of you who have little or no sales experience and haven't sold any tufted rugs, a good starting point is thus to price your work based on time, labor, and cost of materials (yarn, cloth, backing, even the tufting gun).
Pay yourself a reasonable hourly wage, add the abovementioned cost and make that the price of your hand tufted rug.
If you use this formula and your rug turns out to be way more expensive than what other artists in your area charge for similar rugs, you may have to rethink your pricing, pay yourself a little less per hour perhaps.
All above is important but in the end I cannot tell you how much your rug is worth, only you and market forces can. If this formula turns out to make your rug much more expensive than other hand tufted rugs, you may have to rethink your pricing, pay yourself a little less per hour perhaps.
You can research places like etsy and instagram to compare yourself with other rugmakers. I am sure you piece is unique but there are likely some aspects in which you can compare yourself to others. Think of a target group, do you tuft creative art pieces, trending topics and tv characters or serious pieces for offices and see where your rug fits in.
Also try out different selling places. Different people shop at different places. Etsy and ebay are common, but you get lucky in a more local place with less competition or a really specific target area (baby or wedding gifts for example).