Hone your resin casting: price the pour, keep the margin

Curing is free. The mold, the prep, and the failures are not. Price for those.

Resin looks cheap by the gram and turns out expensive by the hour. Here is where casting quietly loses money, and how to price a pour that pays.

Where the margin leaks

The pricing traps that quietly cost makers money.

Forgetting the mold wears out
A silicone mold has a finite number of good pours. Spread its cost across that real life, or your tooling is a hidden subsidy.
Under-counting cups and waste
Mixing cups, stir sticks, gloves, the resin left in the cup. Small each, constant always. Price them.
Ignoring failed pours
Bubbles, soft spots, demold tears. A failed pour ate the resin and your time. Buffer for it.

The levers that actually move your take-home.

More cavities per pour
A multi-cavity mold turns one mix and one cure into several pieces. The per-piece tooling and labor drop hard.
Pressure pot pays for itself
Equipment that cuts your bubble-reject rate saves resin and time. Amortize it, then bank the higher success rate.
Bill inclusions and finish
Embedded objects, glitter, sanding, and a polish coat are labor and materials. Charge them, do not absorb them.

The few numbers worth watching.

Pours per mold
The divisor on your tooling cost. Track how many good pours a mold really gives.
Resin cost per piece
Grams times price, with waste. Watch it per piece, not per kilo.
Hands-on minutes
Resin is light on cure but heavy on prep, demold, and finish. Log the real minutes.

How to make Anvil price your craft the honest way.

Use the volume calculator
Mold dimensions and fill give grams and cost, straight into the estimate.
Set mold pours and cavities
Enter the real lifetime pours and cavity count so the per-piece tooling line is honest.
Add equipment as its own line
A pressure pot or vacuum amortizes over its lifetime pours, separate from the mold.

The cost engine is free. Put your real numbers in and see what to charge.