Set your print prices
How base cost, your price and shipping fit together — and what you actually keep.
The three numbers
- Base cost — what the lab charges to make and ship the item. Set by the lab, shown next to every product.
- Your price — what the client pays. You set this, and it can't be below base cost.
- Your margin — the difference, and what lands in your Stripe account after fees.
The price floor exists so you can't accidentally sell at a loss. If a price won't save, it's under the lab's base cost for that size.
Shipping
Shipping is calculated per item from the lab's real rates and shown to the client as its own line in the cart, rather than being buried in the product price. Framed pieces cost noticeably more to ship than flat prints — that's the lab's cost of getting glass to a door intact, and it's passed through as-is.
What to charge
A common approach is a 2.5–3× multiple on base cost for small prints, easing to around 2× on large and framed pieces where the absolute dollar margin is already healthy. The point of the store isn't to compete with a consumer print shop on price — it's to sell your work, finished properly, to someone who already loves the photo.
Price the smallest size so it looks like a reasonable impulse buy and the middle size like the sensible choice. Most people don't buy the cheapest thing on offer; they buy the one that feels like the safe pick.
Editing prices later
Changing a price applies to new orders straight away. Orders already placed keep the price they were bought at. If a lab's base cost rises above one of your prices, that product stops selling until you raise it — check your prices after any lab change.