The problem
Pricing by feel can leave your own time unpaid. A £24 mug costs £6 materials, £1.20 packaging, 25 minutes of your time at £12 an hour (£5) and, at an assumed 12% fees, £2.88. The profit is £24 - £6 - £1.20 - £5 - £2.88 = £8.92, not the £13.92 you'd see if you ignored your own time.
What the AI does
Ask ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini to build a costing sheet for your items in Google Sheets or Excel: one row per item with materials, packaging, time, hourly rate, fee percentage and postage, and a suggested price for a margin you choose. Read the real fees from Etsy's fees page and type them in yourself; the figures here are assumptions and Etsy's fees change. The assistant writes the formulas and sets out the sheet; you enter the numbers and check the maths with a calculator.
A worked example
A maker of ceramic mugs in Bristol sells 20 items and re-prices 6 products a month when her costs change. She builds one costing sheet and fills a row per product.
Before
About 30 minutes a product costing and re-pricing by hand: 6 x 30 = 180 minutes, 3 hours a month
After
About 10 minutes a product using the sheet: 6 x 10 = 60 minutes, 1 hour a month
What it's worth
About 2 hours a month saved (120 minutes), worth around £24 if your time is worth £12 an hour. The bigger value is pricing correctly: if 20 sales a month of an item were underpriced by £2, that's £40 a month, an illustration rather than a promise. Free plans may be enough; ChatGPT Plus is about £20 a month, so £20 is the top of the range.
How to set it up
- List what each item costs: materials, packaging, your time, postage and any fees.
- Ask ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini to build a costing sheet with formulas for those columns and a suggested price for your target margin.
- Read your fee rates from Etsy's fees page and enter them yourself; check the sheet's maths against two items you've costed by hand.
- Compare each suggested price with what shoppers pay for similar items, then decide the price.
- Update the sheet whenever your material costs or Etsy's fees change.
What goes wrong
- AI makes arithmetic and formula mistakes. Check totals with a calculator and test the sheet on a product you already know.
- Fee rates, VAT and postage rules change; copy them from Etsy and HMRC yourself, and ask your accountant if you're unsure, rather than trusting the assistant.
- Don't paste customers' details or your bank information into an assistant.
- The cheapest price isn't the aim; a price that covers your time is. Don't cut it just because the sheet says you can.