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Craft fairs

Vendor Booth ROI Calculator

Score events you have already done, so next year’s calendar is built on returns rather than on which ones felt busy.

Your numbers

Use your own costs — the defaults are only a starting point.

What the event produced
What it cost
Hours it took

All of them, not just the hours the doors were open.

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Return on event investment: 71.3%
14 input fields available.

How this calculator works

This is the calculator you use afterwards. Enter what an event actually produced and it scores the return, so you can compare a busy market that cost a fortune against a quiet one down the road.

The figure that changes decisions is earnings per total hour — travel, setup, teardown and prep included. A show that pays $40 an hour while the doors are open often pays $15 once the whole weekend is counted.

The formula

  1. Gross profit = revenue − cost of goods − card fees
  2. Net profit = gross profit − booth − travel − lodging − food − staffing − other
  3. ROI = net profit ÷ (event costs + cost of goods sold)
  4. Earnings per total hour = net profit ÷ (show + setup + travel + prep hours)

What to watch for

  • Earnings per total hour is the figure that makes events comparable. Show hours flatter every event equally, so ranking by them tells you nothing useful.
  • Prep time is real and almost always forgotten: pricing stock, packing, checking the float, loading the car. Six hours before a two-day fair is normal.
  • ROI is measured against everything you put in, including the stock you sold. A high ROI on a tiny event can still be worth less in cash than a modest ROI on a large one — read both figures.
  • Score every event the same way and a year of data will tell you which ones to reapply to. Memory is unreliable, and the busiest-feeling event is frequently not the most profitable.

Common mistakes

  • Judging an event by revenue, which ignores both the booth fee and the cost of the stock.
  • Counting only show hours and concluding an out-of-town fair paid well.
  • Forgetting prep and packing time in the days beforehand.
  • Reapplying to an event because it felt busy rather than because it scored well.

Frequently asked questions

How do I know if a craft fair was worth it?

Compare net profit per total hour against what those hours would have earned making and selling stock another way. An event that returns $18 an hour once travel, setup and prep are counted is worse than a quiet day in the workshop for most established makers — even if the event felt like a success.

What is a good ROI for a craft fair?

There is no universal figure, because it depends what the alternative was. What matters is the comparison across your own events, scored the same way. Run a year of shows through this and the pattern is usually obvious — and often surprising.

Should I count my own time as a cost?

Not as a cash cost, because paying yourself does not change whether the event made money. Instead read the earnings-per-total-hour figure and compare it against your normal hourly return. That answers the real question: was this weekend a better use of the time than the alternative?

Why does my per-hour figure drop so much when I include travel?

Because travel, setup, teardown and prep frequently equal or exceed the show hours themselves. A fourteen-hour weekend fair can easily carry another fourteen hours around it, which halves the effective rate. That is exactly why out-of-town events need to earn substantially more to be worth the same.