How this calculator works
A booth fee is spent whether you sell anything or not, which makes an event a fixed-cost bet. The question is not whether you will make sales, but how many you need before the day pays for itself.
Fill in the costs and your traffic assumptions. Because footfall estimates are the least reliable input, the calculator also shows what happens if conversion comes in 40% below or above your guess.
The formula
- Total fixed cost = booth + application + permits + travel + mileage × rate + lodging + food + staffing + display + advertising
- Expected sales = booth visitors × conversion rate, capped by the stock you bring
- Contribution per sale = average order − (units per sale × unit cost) − packaging − card fees
- Break-even sales = ⌈ total fixed cost ÷ contribution per sale ⌉
- Net profit = revenue − card fees − cost of goods sold − packaging − total fixed cost
- Effective hourly = net profit ÷ (show hours + setup and teardown hours)
What to watch for
- Sales are capped by the stock you bring. Without that cap, an optimistic conversion rate would silently assume infinite inventory and overstate the upside.
- Unsold stock is usually not a loss — it sells at the next event. It is reported separately as recoverable value rather than deducted from profit, so a slow show does not look like a disaster it is not.
- Setup and teardown are counted in effective hourly earnings. They are frequently a third of the real time commitment and are almost always left out of mental maths.
- Only the share of display equipment consumed by this event belongs here. A tent you will use for forty shows should not be charged entirely to the first one.
- Conversion is the least reliable input, which is why the conservative and optimistic scenarios move it rather than the costs. Costs you know; footfall you are guessing.
Common mistakes
- Counting event attendance instead of people who actually stop at your booth.
- Forgetting mileage, food, and the hours spent setting up and packing down.
- Treating unsold inventory as a loss when it will sell at the next event.
- Charging the full cost of reusable display equipment to a single show.
- Using retail price instead of true unit cost for the inventory figure.
- Judging an event on revenue rather than on profit after the booth fee.
Frequently asked questions
How do I know if a craft fair is worth the booth fee?
Work out the contribution each sale makes after stock, packaging and card fees, then divide the total fixed cost by it. That gives the number of sales you need before the day pays for itself. Compare that against realistic footfall and conversion — if you need more sales than you can plausibly make, the fee is too high for that event.
What conversion rate should I expect at a craft fair?
For handmade goods at a well-matched event, 8–15% of the people who stop at your booth is a common range. It varies enormously with price point, product category, and how well the audience matches what you sell, so track your own figures across a few events and use those instead.
Should I count unsold inventory as a loss?
Usually not. Stock that does not sell at one event generally sells at the next, so it is working capital rather than an expense. This calculator reports its recoverable value separately. Lower the recovery percentage for dated, seasonal or perishable items where the stock genuinely will not carry over.
Do I include my own time in the cost?
Not as a cash cost, because paying yourself does not change whether the event was profitable. Instead the calculator reports effective hourly earnings, including setup and teardown, so you can compare a show against whatever else you could have done with that weekend.
Why does the optimistic scenario sometimes barely beat the expected one?
Because you cannot sell stock you did not bring. When expected demand already approaches your inventory, extra footfall has nothing left to buy, and the calculator warns you to bring more rather than reporting a fictional upside.