Tracking Profit as a Maker

Why feeling busy isn't the same as being profitable

Most small makers know roughly what came in but have no idea what their actual profit was. Without numbers you can't tell which products carry your business and which quietly drain it.

You don't need an accountant or fancy software. You need 15 minutes a month and a habit of logging every order as it happens.

Log every order at the point of sale

Use the Order Manager inside MakerMind. For every order, log: customer name, product, sale price, your true cost (use the Profit Calculator), date received and date completed. The tool calculates profit per order and lifetime totals automatically.

Logging takes 30 seconds per order if you do it as you go. If you batch it weekly, it takes 30 minutes and you'll forget half the costs.

The four numbers that matter

Forget revenue. Forget Etsy view counts. The four numbers that actually run your business:

• Profit per order: revenue − all true costs. If this is under £5, the order isn't worth doing
• Average margin: total profit ÷ total revenue. Anything below 40% means your prices are too low or costs too high
• Time per order: total hours worked ÷ orders completed. Combined with profit, gives you £/hour
• Repeat customer rate: customers ordering twice or more. Above 15% means your product is genuinely loved

The monthly review (15 minutes)

On the first of every month, open the Order Manager and look at last month's data. Ask three questions:

• Which 3 products made the most profit? Stock more. Promote them. Improve photos
• Which 3 products made the least? Discontinue, raise prices, or reduce print time
• What was my £/hour? If it's below minimum wage, something is structurally wrong

Stop the silent leaks

The most common silent profit leaks: not charging for personalisation time, undercharging for shipping, free reprints because of failures, packaging upgrades 'just to make it nice'. Each one feels small. Combined they often eat 10–20% of profit.

Once a quarter, do a 'leak audit'. Go through 10 random orders and check that every cost line was charged for. If you've been absorbing costs, raise prices on the next batch.

Save for tax (UK guidance)

If you're in the UK and your maker income exceeds £1,000 a year, you must register as self-employed with HMRC. Set aside 25–30% of profit (not revenue) into a separate savings account from day one. You'll thank yourself in January.

Keep receipts for everything: filament, printers, electricity, packaging, software, fair fees. They're all tax-deductible expenses against your profit.

When to scale and when to stop

Numbers tell you when to invest. If a product line consistently makes £20+ profit per order at over 50% margin and you're selling out — that's the signal to buy a second printer.

If you've been doing this 6 months and still aren't making £15/hour after costs, the problem isn't effort. It's pricing, product mix, or fit. The data will tell you which.