How to price products for events

Start with the full cost of one item

Pricing from the cost upwards stops a busy day hiding a loss. Begin with what one item costs you to put on the table. For bought-in stock that is the price you paid, plus delivery to you, packaging and labels. For items you make, add materials and a value for your time.

Craftybase, a software firm that publishes pricing guides for makers, builds a retail price from several layers: materials, labour at an hourly rate you choose, a share of overheads, and payment or platform fees. Its guide then applies a markup to the base cost. The same layers work for any stall, whether you make the goods or buy them in. Its worked examples use dollars, so read them for the method and use your own pounds. You can read the method in Craftybase: how to price handmade items.

• Purchase price or materials for one item.
• Packaging, bags, labels and tags.
• Your time, at an hourly rate you set yourself, if you make the item.
• Your share of the day's costs (see below).
• Card or payment charges on the sale.

Margin and markup are different numbers

Xero's glossary explains that markup divides profit by cost, while margin divides the same profit by the selling price. Its example is an item costing £70 and selling for £100. The profit is £30, which is a markup of 42.86 per cent and a margin of 30 per cent. Xero also warns that a 30 per cent markup produces a margin of only about 23 per cent, so mixing the two up can leave you underpriced. See Xero: margin vs markup.

To go from a margin you want to a price, divide the cost by one minus the margin (written as a decimal). The table below applies that to an item costing £10. The figures are illustrative arithmetic and set no target for any particular trade.

Pick one of the two measures and stick with it. Many traders find margin easier to use at a stall, because it tells you how many pence of each pound taken is left after the cost of the goods.

Share the day's costs across what you expect to sell

Pitch fees, fuel, parking and payment charges are paid whether you sell ten items or a hundred. Divide the day's costs by the number of items you expect to sell and add that share to the cost of each item.

Published pitch fees give a sense of scale, although every market sets its own. Braintree District Council's 2025/26 street market schedule lists a 3m pitch at £25.45 and a 6m pitch at £44.55, with higher rates for special events (see the Braintree street market page). Redditch Borough Council's 2026 market fees list a casual single stall at £39.00 on a Thursday and £41.50 on a Saturday, and a single stall at its vintage, craft and food markets at £23.00, all shown as standard VAT (see the Redditch 2026 market fees). Private events and festivals set their own fees, so use the figure in your booking.

In Gala Tent's experience, small local events may cost around £10 to £30 per table, and larger, better attended shows work up to around £100. At festivals and some other events you may be forced to use the organiser's or provider's card readers, and they will expect a fee plus a percentage of your takings. These are typical ranges from Gala Tent's experience, not a sourced survey, so check the figure in each booking.

The Craft Map, a crafts website, gives a simple break-even test: add the booth fee, travel and food, then divide by the profit per item to see how many items you must sell before you earn anything (see The Craft Map: how to price products for craft fairs). Our guides to working out your break-even, pitch fees and the hidden costs of event trading cover each cost in more detail.

A worked example with illustrative figures

The figures here are made up to show the method. Replace every one with your own.

• One item costs £6.00 to buy or make.
• The day's costs are £59: a £39 pitch, £15 of fuel and £5 of parking.
• Card charges are assumed at 2 per cent of each sale. Use your provider's published rate instead.
• The target margin is 50 per cent of the selling price.

The price that meets the target is the unit cost plus the share of day costs, divided by one minus the target margin and the card rate (here 1 − 0.50 − 0.02 = 0.48). The result depends heavily on how many items you sell.

At 40 items a price of £16 would leave a margin of about 51 per cent after the card charge and the day's costs. If only 25 items sell at £16, the margin falls well below target. That is why the sales forecast is the weakest part of any price, and why the next section matters.

Check the price against the event

A price built from costs still has to suit the shoppers in front of you. Walk the event or market, note what similar stalls charge and notice how people react to prices on your own stall. Different events support different prices, and our guide to pricing for different event types looks at that.

The Craft Map suggests offering three tiers, an entry item, a bestseller in the middle and a premium item, because most shoppers choose the middle one. It also suggests bundles, such as three items for a set price, to raise the average sale, and round prices where many customers pay cash, because they speed up change-giving. It suggests seasonal fairs may support a price rise of 10 to 15 per cent. Treat that last figure as an idea to test, since it comes from one outlet.

Craftybase says handmade sellers commonly apply markups of 100 to 300 per cent on base cost. That range is aimed at handmade goods, so bought-in stock with a well-known retail price may sit lower.

The Craft Map recommends discounting for a reason you choose in advance, such as a bundle, the last hour or a repeat customer, and advises against discounting simply because a shopper asks. GOV.UK's 2012 start-up tips for market stalls, offered by a former television Apprentice contestant, add that you should price everything clearly because shoppers come looking for bargains (see GOV.UK: top 10 tips for market stall start-ups).

Show prices the way the law expects

If you sell goods to consumers, price marking rules apply to you. Business Companion, the Trading Standards guidance site, says the selling price must be shown in writing, be clear and legible, be in pounds sterling, include VAT and any compulsory charges, and sit close to the goods (see Business Companion: prices). Delivery charges can be shown separately if they are clear.

GOV.UK's guidance on the Price Marking Order adds that a unit price is needed for goods sold loose from bulk or in set quantities, shown per kilogram, litre, metre or item as the product requires (see GOV.UK: Price Marking Order 2004 guidance). Law firm Stevens Bolton reports that amendments to the order took effect on 6 April 2026 in Great Britain, including a requirement that prices use a clear font of reasonable size and that every price be shown, with any conditions, where an item has more than one (see Stevens Bolton: Price Marking Order update). Northern Ireland has its own order.

Trading Standards guidance on pricing practices, reviewed in April 2026, says a "was" price should be a price you genuinely charged, and that drip pricing, where non-optional charges are added after an initial price, is banned (see Business Companion: pricing practices). Business Companion also says you cannot add a surcharge for paying by consumer credit or debit card, or by mobile and similar electronic payments (see Business Companion: payment surcharges). Build the cost of card charges into the price at the outset.

In Gala Tent's experience, traders who take cards tend to use a handheld card reader, and its fees are much higher than those of a QR code payment. Gala Technology, the group that includes Gala Tent, owns SOTpay and Pay by QR, so weigh that view with this in mind and compare current published fees for any option.

Our guide to setting up a market stall covers how to lay out price signs on the day.

VAT and tax when you set prices

As of November 2026, GOV.UK lists the VAT registration threshold at £90,000 of taxable turnover, and the level below which you can deregister at £88,000 (see GOV.UK: VAT thresholds). If you are registered, the prices consumers see must include VAT, so work out your margin on the amount left after VAT. Our guide to whether to register for VAT goes through the decision.

GOV.UK describes a trading allowance of £1,000 per tax year. If your gross trading income is £1,000 or less you generally do not need to tell HMRC, but you must keep records. If it is higher, you must register for Self Assessment by 5 October after the end of the tax year, and you can deduct either the allowance or your actual expenses, not both (see GOV.UK: trading allowance).

Review your prices after every event

Prices are a working guess until real sales test them. The Craft Map suggests recording total sales, the number of transactions, the average sale, best sellers, expenses and profit after each fair, and testing a small rise on your best sellers to see whether sales hold. It also suggests reviewing prices at least yearly as costs rise.

GOV.UK says self-employed people should keep records of all sales and expenses, including till rolls, receipts and bank statements (see GOV.UK: business records if you are self-employed). A simple sheet per event, with takings, items sold and costs, gives you the numbers to reprice with.

Pricing checklist

1. Work out the full cost of each item, including packaging and your time.
2. Decide whether you will measure with margin or markup, and use the same one every time.
3. Estimate the day's costs and the number of items you expect to sell, and add the share to each item.
4. Check the result against similar stalls at that event.
5. Price every item with a clear sterling price including VAT, and add unit prices for loose goods.
6. Include card charges in the price, since a card surcharge is banned for consumers.
7. Keep a record of takings, items sold and costs for every event.
8. Review prices after three or four events and at least once a year.