MadeKeeper is inventory and pricing software for woodturners.
Blanks come in green and sit for months before the second turning, and not all of them make it. The ones that do carry the blank and the finish that went on them.
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.
Woodturning, specifically
Same books underneath — the numbers below are the ones that change.
Pen turning
Pen turning runs on kits and blanks — bolt-actions by the ten-pack, stabilized burl blanks worth more than the hardware, CA finish built coat by coat. The trap is pricing off the kit and forgetting the rest. MadeKeeper costs each pen from everything on the mandrel, so the $45 price tag stands on arithmetic.
Say you turn 5 bolt-action pens:
- 5 bolt-action kits @ $6.80$34.00
- 5 stabilized blanks @ $3.90$19.50
- CA finish and abrasives$2.75
- Bushing and tube wear share$0.90
At $45 each you keep $33.57 a pen — and when a buyer asks why the burl pen is $65 and the oak one is $40, the answer is in the blank costs, written down where you can see them.
Your inventory is blanks — bought, traded, or chainsawed free from a neighbor's downed maple — and half of it is rough-outs drying for months before the second turning. That's real work in progress the shoebox method can't see. MadeKeeper tracks a bowl from green wood to gallery shelf, with the cost basis honest at every stage.
How MadeKeeper maps to your blank shelf
MadeKeeper values a free blank at what it really cost
A bought burl blank logs at $24; the storm-fall maple logs at zero. Both are on the books, so when either becomes a bowl, the profit number is true instead of flattering.MadeKeeper parks a twice-turned bowl as work in progress
A rough-out on the drying shelf is a piece mid-recipe, not a mystery. Months later, when it goes back on the lathe, its history and cost are still attached.MadeKeeper spreads abrasives, CA and finish across the batch
Sandpaper through the grits, CA for the cracks, walnut oil at the end — the consumables that quietly eat a turning's margin get logged like the materials they are.MadeKeeper sells seconds at their own tier
The bowl with the check you filled sells at the seconds table, not full price. MadeKeeper prices tiers separately so discounted work doesn't muddy your real margins.One bowl, to the penny
Say you finish a 10" maple bowl from a bought blank:
- Dried bowl blank$24.00
- Abrasives and CA$3.10
- Walnut oil finish$1.85
At $120 on the gallery shelf, you kept $91.05 before the gallery's split — and when the same form comes off a free storm-fall blank, you'll see exactly what the chainsaw afternoon was worth.
Market Saturday, for woodturners
The bench is one half of it. MadeKeeper follows woodturners 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. Woodturners 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 woodturners ask
How do I track green wood that dries for months?
Rough it out, log it as work in progress, and it waits on the books like it waits on the shelf. When you finish-turn it, the piece completes with its full history — no lost cost, no mystery stock.
What about free wood?
Log it at zero cost basis. That's honest — and it means your profit on those pieces is real profit, while your bought-blank pieces show the difference the free wood makes.
Can I sell seconds without wrecking my numbers?
Yes. A seconds tier prices discounted pieces separately, so the $45 bowl with the filled check doesn't drag down what your first-quality work appears to earn.
How do I track a drawer full of different kits?
Each kit style logs as its own material with its own unit price. A pen's recipe names its kit and blank, so slimlines, bolt-actions, and rollerballs each price from their real parts.
What are seconds in pen turning?
The pen with the visible glue line or the blowout you saved sells from a seconds tier at its own price — real revenue, kept separate so it doesn't blur what your first-quality work earns.
Do free or traded blanks change the math?
Log them at zero or at trade value — either is honest if you're consistent. The margin difference between free spalted maple and bought stabilized burl becomes visible, which is exactly what should drive what you turn next.
Ready to see your real numbers?
The app is live. $19/mo, kept for as long as you stay.