MadeKeeper is inventory and pricing software for blacksmiths and bladesmiths.
The stock is the cheap part. Fuel for the forge, the handle, the pins — they all land on the same knife, and together they run past what the steel cost you.
Free tools, no signup: the fair profit calculator.
free to start, and no card to start. No order-line meters, ever.
$19/mo for the whole back office, kept for as long as you stay. No card to start — MadeKeeper asks for one when you subscribe, not before. The shop stays free for cost a piece and one fair — no product cap. The tax packet, Etsy and Square, and more fairs are the $19.
Blacksmithing, specifically
Same books underneath — the numbers below are the ones that change.
Knife making
Stock-removal knife making has a secret the price tag rarely reflects: the belts cost more than the steel. A bar of AEB-L, an oven cycle, a pair of stabilized scales — and six belts ground to slick in the process. MadeKeeper puts the grinder's appetite on every knife's books, so your prices come from the whole build, not the steel receipt.
Say you grind an AEB-L 8-inch chef:
- AEB-L bar stock for the blade$14.20
- 6 grinding belts @ $4.50$27.00
- Heat-treat oven cycle$3.10
- Stabilized scales (pair)$16.50
- Pins and epoxy$2.40
- Abrasives and buffing$3.80
At $325 with eleven hours in the build, your bench time paid $23.45 an hour. That's a real wage — and the number that says your next price bump belongs on the hand-sanded models, where the hours hide.
Horseshoe art
Horseshoe art starts with a bucket of farrier cast-offs at fifty cents a shoe — and everything after that is your labor: wire-wheeling rust, welding hearts and crosses square, and the clear coat that makes barn steel giftable. The material bill flatters you; the consumables and hours are the business. MadeKeeper counts what the bucket doesn't show.
Say you weld a batch of 10 horseshoe hearts:
- 20 used shoes @ 50¢ from the farrier$10.00
- Welding wire and gas share$4.60
- Wire wheels and flap discs$3.20
- Clear coat, 2 cans$9.40
At $25 each you keep $22.28 a heart before fees — and the batch's real cost says the $45 double-heart with the name plate isn't a stretch, it's underpriced.
Welded yard art
Yard art is built from two piles: the scrap you got for nothing and the new bar stock you didn't. A garden heron is rebar legs, a scrap-sheet body, a foot of new round bar — plus gas, discs, and the primer-and-enamel finish that survives a sprinkler. MadeKeeper keeps both piles honest, so 'basically free to make' becomes an actual number.
Say you weld a 4-foot scrap heron:
- Scrap rebar and sheet from the pile$0.00
- New round bar, 20 ft$16.40
- Wire, gas, and cutting discs$8.90
- Primer and outdoor enamel$11.20
At $145 at the spring market you keep $108.50 before fees — and because the scrap logged at zero, that margin is true, not a story you tell yourself about the pile behind the shop.
A knife's steel might cost eight dollars; the belts you burn grinding it cost more. Fuel, abrasives, and hours are the real economics of forge work, and they're exactly what a price-by-materials habit misses. MadeKeeper counts the consumables per piece so your quench, your heat treat, and your hammer time all end up on the price tag.
How MadeKeeper maps to your forge
MadeKeeper buys steel by the bar and the billet
1084, O1, 5160 — log bar stock by the foot or pound at what you paid. A knife pulls its length down; a damascus billet logs its stacked stock so the pattern's cost is real.MadeKeeper burns belts and fuel off as consumables
Three belts and an afternoon of propane can outcost the steel. Log consumables per piece — belts, fuel hours, flap discs — and your "cheap" knives stop looking so profitable.MadeKeeper itemises scales, pins and kydex
Handle scales by the pair, pin stock, epoxy, sheath material — the finishing bill logs per knife so the last 10% of the build stops being free.MadeKeeper prices a one-of-a-kind like one
Each forged piece can carry its own cost basis and hours. Marked with your maker's mark, sold at the show or by commission — and the books know what every piece truly earned.One knife, to the penny
Say you forge a 1084 hunter:
- Steel for the blade$8.40
- 3 grinding belts @ $4.25$12.75
- Propane, 2.5 forge hours @ $1.60/hr$4.00
- Walnut scales (pair)$9.50
- Pins and epoxy$2.10
Sell it at $240 with nine hours in it and your forge time paid $22.58 an hour. That's the number that should set the next knife's price — not what the steel cost.
For blades, MadeKeeper keeps clean records of what you made, when, and where it sold — useful paperwork to have on hand, since knife rules vary by state; the rules themselves stay your call to check.
Market Saturday, for blacksmiths and bladesmiths
The bench is one half of it. MadeKeeper follows blacksmiths and bladesmiths out to the booth as well: it opens on one bar of signal, rings a sale in taps and files it against that day's event, holds that sale on the phone if the signal quits and puts it through when the bars come back, reads the tag you printed, and prints a market-day sheet before you load the truck.
None of that is a card reader. Blacksmiths and bladesmiths take payment however they already take it; MadeKeeper only keeps the count honest while you sell. Everything it does at the booth →
Straight about what's live
Materials and true cost per piece, batch "makes" with your labor amortized in, the suggested-price coach, product variants, sales that drain stock, the market-day quick-sale screen, lot tracking, the was-this-fair-worth-it event math, money-insight reports, multi-location consignment, the cure/best-by heads-up engine, mileage, expenses, and the Schedule C tax packet are all in the app today, with guided setup and a full Craftybase history migration to get you started. So are Etsy order sync, Square card sync, your own shop page, a Buy button on your own Square account, and custom-order requests off a piece you already sold. On the $24 MadeKeeper AI plan you also get receipts, shelves and recipe cards read from a photo — photo reads are on that plan; hand entry is how the $19 shop starts. Still building: your own books answered in plain words, buying a shipping label inside the app, and a best-customers report. MadeKeeper does not send marketing email to your buyers and is not going to: every maker here sends from one shared reputation, and a quote that has to arrive matters more than a mailing list. Nothing above is dressed up as done when it is not. See the full live-vs-building list →
Questions blacksmiths and bladesmiths ask
Can MadeKeeper track consumables like belts and fuel?
Yes — belts, fuel, and abrasives log as materials and get pulled into each piece's recipe. For most bladesmiths that's the difference between a flattering margin and a real one.
How do I price one-of-a-kind forged work?
Each piece carries its own cost basis and hours, and every sale reports profit per hour. Watch that number across a season and your pricing floor sets itself from evidence.
Does it handle hammer-ins and shows?
Yes. An event logs its fees, travel, and hours; your load-out and count-back give it the sales. The verdict tells you whether that weekend show out-earned a weekend at the forge.
Why track belts so carefully?
Because they're the cost that scales with every knife and never shows on a materials list. Six belts is $27 — more than most makers' steel — and a year of grinding is a four-figure belt bill your prices should have been carrying all along.
How does sent-out heat treat log?
As a per-blade line on the knife — the service fee plus shipping share. If you run your own oven, log the cycle cost instead. Either way the hardening step is in the price.
Can I track kydex and leather sheaths?
Yes — sheath materials log per knife, or as their own product if you sell sheaths separately. The knife-and-sheath bundle then prices from the whole truth of what's on the table.
Do free shoes mean free product?
No — and that's the useful part. The shoes may be nearly free, but wire, gas, discs, and clear coat run a few dollars a piece before your hours. MadeKeeper shows the real floor under your prices, which is higher than the bucket suggests.
How do custom name pieces work?
A personalized piece logs as a commission — shoes, added steel for the name, and the extra hours. You'll see whether customs out-earn the ready-made hearts, or just take longer.
What about bigger builds like wine racks and coat hooks?
Each design gets its own recipe — more shoes, more weld time, more coat. Cost them separately and the table learns which sizes actually carry the booth fee.
Why log scrap at all if it costs nothing?
Because the build's other costs — new steel, gas, discs, enamel — are real, and because a season of sales against honest costs tells you which designs earn their weld time. Zero is a cost basis too; it just needs to be written down.
How do commissions work for big pieces?
A commissioned piece logs with its deposit, its materials from both piles, and its hours. When the pond heron ships, you'll know what it truly paid — usually more per hour than the market table, but now you'll know by how much.
Can I track flower stakes and small stuff too?
Batch them — a dozen disc-blade flowers log as one run, costed each. The small stakes are the impulse row that pays the booth fee while the big pieces draw the crowd.
Ready to see your real numbers?
The app is live. $19/mo, kept for as long as you stay.