How to Price a Stained Glass Piece: Price per Square Foot, Worked

October 27, 2026 · Selling products and running the numbers

To work out how much to charge for stained glass art, price the piece from what it takes: the sheet glass with your waste allowance, the foil, solder and came by the inch of seam, your bench hours at the rate you pay yourself, and studio overhead per hour, then add a margin. In the illustrative panel below, the full cost is $370.55, a 25% margin prices it at $494.07, and that is $164.69 per square foot. Repairs, commissions and suncatchers are worked further down.

None of these figures are market prices. Every glass price, waste allowance, seam length, solder weight and task time belongs to one made-up maker and is there to be replaced with your own receipts and your own clock. Nothing here says which glass, foil or solder to use; for solder, came and patina, follow the product label.

The stained glass price formula

panel area     = width x height / 144   (square feet)
glass          = area x (1 + waste) x blended price per square foot
seam materials = foil + solder + border came + flux and patina
bench hours    = cutting + foiling + soldering + design + finishing
full cost      = glass + seam materials + hours x (your rate + overhead)
price          = full cost / (1 - margin)
price per square foot = price / panel area

Step 1: glass cost

The example panel is 18 by 24 inches, 3.00 square feet. A 30% waste allowance for offcuts, breaks and grain matching means buying 3.90 square feet of sheet. The main glass is $12.00 a square foot and the accent glass, 25% of the panel, is $20.00:

The accent glass is a small share of the area but 35.7% of the glass bill. A pattern with more accent color raises the glass cost even at the same size.

Step 2: foil, solder and came

Measure the inside seams on your own pattern. The example has 300 inches of inside seam and a 84-inch edge. Copper foil runs 2 times along each inside seam, once for each piece that meets there, plus once around the edge pieces: 684 inches at $0.0125 an inch, from a $16.20 roll of 1296 inches. Solder goes on the seams and the edge, 384 inches. At the example’s own weighed figure of 0.6 ounces a foot, that is 1.2 pounds at $32.00 a pound.

Solder is 71% of the seam materials here. Weigh a spool before and after one panel to get your own ounces per foot; it is the figure the seam line turns on.

Step 3: bench hours

The example’s own timings, per piece where the work goes piece by piece and per foot where it follows the seam:

Cutting and grinding is the largest block, 39% of the hours. At the $30.00 the maker pays themselves, 7.70 hours is $231.00.

Step 4: price the panel

Overhead, the grinder bits, blades, power and rent, goes in at the example’s $4.00 per bench hour, so a slower panel carries more of it.

The margin is profit on top of your hourly pay, not instead of it. Full cost alone is $123.52 a square foot; the margin takes it to $164.69. The markup vs margin chart shows why a 25% margin is more than a 25% markup.

Checking a price per square foot you already use

If you quote stained glass by the square foot, test the rate on a real panel. At the example’s $160.00 a square foot, this panel quotes at $480.00. That covers the $370.55 cost but leaves a 22.8% margin, short of 25%, and $14.07 under the price the margin needs.

A square-foot price only holds for panels of similar detail. This panel has 13.33 pieces per square foot. Each extra piece in the same panel adds 6 minutes of cutting, grinding and foiling, which at your rate and overhead is at least $4.53 on the price at a 25% margin, before counting the extra seam it brings. A busier pattern of the same size needs a higher rate.

How much to charge for stained glass repair

Price a repair per broken piece, with a minimum charge. In the example each replacement piece takes 45 minutes out and back in and 16 square inches of matching glass at $18.00 a square foot with a 50% allowance for matching the grain, $3.00 of glass, plus $1.50 of foil and solder. Each job also carries 0.75 fixed hours of assessment, cleaning and patina. Time and overhead together are $34.00 an hour.

The example’s 3 broken pieces cost $115.50 and price at $154.00 at the 25% margin. Each piece beyond the first adds $40.00; the first carries the fixed hours as well. With the example’s $75.00 minimum:

A single piece works out at $74.00, under the minimum, so the minimum is the quote. Taking a panel out of a window or door is not in these figures; add those hours to the fixed hours.

Commission quote and deposit

For a commission, the example starts from its $480.00 panel price, adds 2 extra revision rounds of 0.5 hours at $30.00 ($30.00) and a $45.00 frame, for a quote of $555.00. A 40% deposit is $222.00, more than the $153.75 of glass, seam materials and frame bought up front; any deposit share from 27.7% up would cover them. The balance on delivery is $333.00. Revisions are charged at the hourly rate only and the frame at cost, so add overhead or margin to them if you want it there.

Suncatchers: price the batch, not the piece

Small pieces turn on setup. A suncatcher in the example takes 25 minutes in a run and $6.10 of materials, and each batch carries 1 hour of setup and cleanup. Made 12 at a time, each costs $23.10 with time and overhead, and prices at $33.00 at a 30% margin. Made on its own, with the whole setup hour, the same suncatcher costs $54.27 and would need $77.52. The handmade jewelry post works the same batch logic for small pieces.

The insight: the glass is not the price

Glass and seam materials are 29% of this panel’s full cost; bench time and overhead are 71%. Your hours at your own rate alone, $231.00, are more than all the glass, foil and solder together. That is why a price built as “materials times something” drifts away from the work: two panels with the same glass bill can differ by many bench hours if one is cut into more pieces. Count the pieces and time a panel before you trust a per square foot rate.

How these were calculated

Panel area is width x height / 144. Glass is area x (1 + waste) x the main and accent prices blended by their shares. Foil is (runs per seam x inside seam + edge) x roll price / roll length; solder is (inside seam + edge) / 12 x ounces per foot / 16 x price per pound; came is the edge x stick price / stick length. Bench hours are pieces x minutes per piece for cutting and for foiling, plus soldering per foot of seam, design and finishing. Full cost is glass + seam materials + hours x (rate + overhead), and price is full cost / (1 - margin). Repairs are fixed hours plus each piece’s glass, foil, solder and minutes, over (1 - margin), with a minimum. Figures are carried from step to step as the spreadsheet shows them, to the cent. Every figure was computed twice, once by the code behind the product below and once by an independent program that prices solder by the pound used, sums bench time in minutes and builds a repair one broken piece at a time, and the two agree. All inputs are illustrative, not supplier prices, measured times or market prices. None of this is financial, legal or tax advice.

To run this on your own glass, patterns and hours, the pack below has eight linked calculators, from glass cost to a market booth break-even.