MadeKeeper is inventory and pricing software for macramé artists.
A spool of 5mm cotton is easy to buy and hard to count, because the piece uses it by the foot. What a plant hanger took, plus the dowel it hangs on, becomes its real cost.
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.
Macramé & weaving, specifically
Same books underneath — the numbers below are the ones that change.
Tufted rugs
Tufting eats materials by the pound — yarn off the cone, primary cloth stretched on the frame, then the glue-up, backing, and carve that turn loose loops into a rug. Add the gun, the shears, and a commission queue of custom logos, and the money moves fast in both directions. MadeKeeper keeps the cones, the cloth, and the queue on one ledger.
Say you tuft a 24-inch commission:
- 1.4 lb of yarn off the cones @ $7.20/lb$10.08
- Primary cloth, 1 sq yd$4.75
- Glue and felt backing$6.90
- Binding tape and trim$1.60
At $120 you keep $96.67 before fees — about $19.33 an hour across the five hours of tufting, glue-up, and carving. Now the $160 quote for the next logo commission has a floor under it.
You buy cord by the spool — 3 mm, 5 mm, single twist, braided — and burn through meters faster than the receipts can say. A wall hanging eats 80 meters before you've knotted the first row of fringe. MadeKeeper tracks cord by length and size so every hanger, hanging, and commission knows exactly what's in it.
How MadeKeeper maps to your cord shelf
MadeKeeper measures cord by millimetre and metre
A 100 m spool of 3 mm cotton logs once at cost; every piece pulls its meters down. Different diameters are different materials, because a 5 mm piece can't be rescued by the 3 mm shelf.MadeKeeper counts dowels, rings and beads by the piece
The hardware is small money that adds up — wooden rings, driftwood, brass dowels. Log them per piece and they show up in every hanger's true cost.MadeKeeper works your fringe waste into the cost
Comb-out and trim ends are cord you paid for. Build a waste allowance into a recipe and your costs stay honest even when the floor is covered in fluff.MadeKeeper follows a piece from fair to Etsy to commission
Market-day hangers, Etsy orders, and that six-foot headboard commission each log in their own channel — with the event math telling you which Saturdays earn their booth fee.One plant hanger, to the penny
Say you knot a classic single-pot hanger:
- 42 m of 3 mm cotton cord @ 18.5¢/m$7.77
- Wooden ring$0.65
At $32 on the market table, you keep $23.58 before fees. Stack that against the ninety minutes it took and the booth fee it shares, and pricing next season stops being a feeling.
Market Saturday, for macramé artists
The bench is one half of it. MadeKeeper follows macramé artists 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. Macramé artists 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 macramé artists ask
Can I track different cord sizes separately?
Yes — 3 mm and 5 mm are separate materials with their own meters and costs, just like they're separate on your shelf. Recipes pull from the right spool automatically.
How do I cost a large commission?
Log it as its own piece with its own recipe — the cord, the dowel, the hours — plus the deposit when it lands. When it's done you'll see what the piece truly paid, not just what it grossed.
What about cord bought in bulk from different suppliers?
Each purchase logs at its own price, so when the cheap spool runs out and the good stuff costs 30% more, your per-piece costs update instead of quietly drifting wrong.
How do I track yarn across dozens of cones?
Each color logs as its own material by the pound. A rug's recipe pulls what it used — weigh the rug if you want it exact — and the cone wall stops being a guess before every supply order.
What about the tufting gun and frame?
Equipment is an expense, not a material — log it once and it shows in your year-end numbers. Gun consumables like needles and maintenance can ride each rug as a small per-piece share.
Can it handle commission deposits?
Yes — a custom rug logs with its deposit and balance, its design notes, and its deadline. The books know which rugs are promised, paid, and shipped, even when the queue is fifteen deep.
Ready to see your real numbers?
The app is live. $19/mo, kept for as long as you stay.