MadeKeeper is inventory and pricing software for knitters and crocheters.
Skeins come home by the bag and get used up one project at a time. Count what a sweater actually ate, add the buttons, and you know what it cost before it ever reaches your table.
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.
Knitting & crochet, specifically
Same books underneath — the numbers below are the ones that change.
Sweaters & knitwear
A sweater is the biggest bet in knitting — six skeins bought at once so the dye lots match, weeks on the needles, and a finished garment the market wants to price like fast fashion. Nobody hand-knits sweaters for the margin; the ones who sell them anyway need the true number in hand before they quote. MadeKeeper gives you that number.
Say you knit a commissioned worsted pullover:
- 1,300 yds — 6 skeins @ $11.50, one dye lot$69.00
- Buttons$4.20
- Woven label$0.45
At $340, the forty-two hours of knitting paid $6.34 an hour. That's not a reason to quit — it's the reason your next quote is $450, and the waitlist is the proof the market will follow.
Crochet blankets
Blankets are the heavy freight of crochet — nine or ten skeins each, hours in the double digits, and a market table where a $150 price tag gets the raised eyebrow. The yarn bill is real, the hours are enormous, and both belong in the price. MadeKeeper tracks the skeins and puts the hours on the tag's side of the argument.
Say you finish a chunky chenille throw:
- 9 skeins @ $6.49$58.41
- Woven label and tag$0.55
At $150 you keep $91.04 before fees — $6.50 an hour for the fourteen hours of crochet. Now you know exactly what the $185 price defends, and what a $95 'deal' actually gives away.
Hand-knit socks
Hand-knit socks are the most honest luxury in fiber: a $26 sock set, sixteen hours of gusset and grafting, and a finished pair the uninitiated compare to a six-pack from the store. Sock knitters who sell don't need a pep talk — they need the per-pair number that justifies heirloom pricing out loud. MadeKeeper does that math.
Say you knit a pair from a hand-dyed set:
- 85 g of a 100 g sock set @ $26$22.10
- Reinforcement thread for the heels$0.60
At $65 you keep $42.30 — sixteen hours of knitting at $2.64 an hour. That number isn't an insult; it's the proof these are heirlooms, and the reason the price tag should never blush.
Your stash lives in skeins, grams, and yardage — with dye lots that matter and labor that dwarfs the materials in every FO you sell. The hard truth of selling knitwear is that the yarn was never the expensive part. MadeKeeper puts a number on both halves so you stop selling hats at frogging-it-would-be-cheaper prices.
How MadeKeeper maps to your stash
MadeKeeper logs skeins by gram, yardage and colorway
Log yarn the way the label reads — 100 g, 220 yds, this colorway, this dye lot. A finished piece pulls down the grams it used, and the leftover partial skein stays counted.MadeKeeper keeps two dye lots of one colorway apart
Two bags of the same colorway from different lots are different materials, because you know exactly what happens when they aren't. MadeKeeper keeps them apart so a sweater quantity stays a sweater quantity.MadeKeeper shows the hours sitting in every finished piece
Materials are $8; the hat took four hours. Every sale shows profit per hour, so the market-table price starts from what your hands are worth — not from what the yarn cost.MadeKeeper counts booth, Etsy, commission and consignment as one book
Craft fair sales, Etsy orders, custom commissions, and consignment pieces in a shop all land in one ledger, each channel's fees counted where they bite.One hat, honestly
Say you knit a worsted beanie:
- 95 g of a 100 g skein @ $8.75$8.31
- Woven label and tag$0.35
Sell it at $45 and the four hours of knitting paid $9.09 an hour. That's the number that decides your prices next season — and MadeKeeper puts it on every sale, not just the ones you do the math on.
Market Saturday, for knitters and crocheters
The bench is one half of it. MadeKeeper follows knitters and crocheters 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. Knitters and crocheters 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 knitters and crocheters ask
Can I track partial skeins?
Yes. Yarn logs in grams, so when a hat takes 95 g of a 100 g skein, the 5 g remainder stays on the books. Your stash total is the real total, scrap balls included.
How does MadeKeeper handle my labor?
You set the hours into a piece and every sale reports profit per hour after materials and fees. It won't lecture you about underpricing — it just shows you the number, and the number does the talking.
What about test knits and gift pieces?
Pieces that leave without a sale can be logged at zero revenue so the materials draw down honestly. Your stash count stays true even when the FO was a baby gift.
How do I keep a sweater quantity from getting raided?
Log the six skeins as one purchase committed to the project. The stash count shows them spoken for, so a hat emergency doesn't quietly break up a matched dye lot.
What about swatches and the yarn they eat?
Swatch yarn is part of the sweater — log the full skeins against the project and the leftovers return to stash when it's done. The books stay honest either way the math falls.
Should I even sell sweaters, by the numbers?
Run three through MadeKeeper and decide from your own profit-per-hour, not from a forum argument. Many knitters keep sweaters commission-only at waitlist prices and sell hats for volume — your ledger will tell you if that's your answer too.
How do I price baby blankets versus throws?
Each size runs its own recipe and its own history. Most blanket makers find the baby size sells three times as often at a friendlier price — and per hour, it usually beats the queen. Your ledger will say which end of the table to feed.
Can I track yarn bought on sale?
Every purchase logs at what you actually paid, so the blanket made from the 40%-off haul shows its true, better margin — and the one made at full price doesn't hide behind it.
What about blankets that take months?
A half-done blanket is work in progress — materials committed, hours accruing, visible on the books. The temperature blanket that eats a year stops being a mystery expense.
Why track this if the hourly rate is always brutal?
Because the brutal number is the sales pitch. When someone balks at $65, 'there are sixteen hours in these' lands differently when you know it's true to the minute — and the ledger tells you which patterns bleed the least.
What do I do with leftover sock yarn?
The 15 g remainders bank up in stash until they become a scrappy pair with a near-zero yarn bill — the best margin in your bin, and MadeKeeper shows it that way.
Can I run a sock club?
Yes — club shipments log as recurring sales with their real yarn and postage costs, separate from show tables. You'll see whether the club's steady drip beats the festival gamble.
Ready to see your real numbers?
The app is live. $19/mo, kept for as long as you stay.