MadeKeeper is inventory and pricing software for taxidermists.
By the time a mount goes home it has a form in it, a tanning bill, a set of eyes. Those lines stay with that animal, so what it cost you is already settled when the customer picks it up.
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.
Your working inventory is other people's property — capes and hides in the freezer, each attached to a customer, a deposit, and a spot in a queue that runs six to eighteen months. Losing track isn't an inventory problem, it's a reputation problem. MadeKeeper keeps the queue, the deposits, and the per-mount costs straight.
How MadeKeeper maps to your shop
MadeKeeper tracks a client's animal as the client's property
Every cape logs with whose it is, when it came in, and which mount it's for. The freezer stops being a memory test.MadeKeeper costs forms, eyes and tanning to each mount
A form, a pair of eyes, the tannery bill, clay and habitat material — each mount's recipe collects its real costs, so your commission prices stand on numbers.MadeKeeper holds deposits against your queue
Take the deposit, log it against the job, and watch the balance come due when the mount's done. Months-long turnaround stays organized instead of living in text threads.MadeKeeper covers shed and antler work the same way
Sheds bought by the pound and antler art sold at the show run through the same books — a different business than commission mounts, and the numbers will show you which one pays better.One shoulder mount, to the penny
Say you take in a whitetail shoulder mount:
- Form$92.00
- Eyes (pair)$14.50
- Tannery bill for the cape$85.00
- Clay, thread, and habitat$18.75
At a $650 commission with a $200 deposit down, the job clears $439.75 before your hours — and the queue view shows every other mount waiting, whose it is, and what's already paid.
MadeKeeper keeps the intake, customer, and species records that state license paperwork asks about — in the app instead of a carbon-copy book.
Most of your queue walks in during hunting season. The outfitters who put hunters on those animals run their bookings on Timber & Tackle — hunting outfitters by unit →
Market Saturday, for taxidermists
The bench is one half of it. MadeKeeper follows taxidermists 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. Taxidermists 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 taxidermists ask
Can MadeKeeper track customer-supplied capes?
Yes — that's the core of it. Client property logs with the owner, the date, and the job it belongs to, separate from your own materials. You always know whose cape is in the freezer and which mount it's promised to.
How do deposits and balances work?
Log the deposit when the job books; the remaining balance stays attached to the mount. When it's finished, you know exactly what's owed — and your year-end numbers show deposits and completions honestly.
Does it help with state record requirements?
It keeps the records — who brought what, when, species, and disposition — organized and exportable. What your state requires and how you file it stays between you and your regs book.
Ready to see your real numbers?
The app is live. $19/mo, kept for as long as you stay.