Underpricing your Craft requests is the most common creator mistake — and the easiest to fix. Your time has real value. Here's a framework for calculating it, pricing it, and adjusting over time.
The time-cost formula
The simplest pricing framework starts with your actual time:
Minimum price = (Time in hours) × (Your hourly rate) ÷ Creator share
Example: A birthday shoutout takes you 20 minutes to plan and 15 minutes to film = 35 minutes. At $60/hour, that’s $35 worth of time. At 85% creator share, you need to charge at least $41 to net your $35.
Most creators underestimate their time. The actual time for a typical Craft includes:
- Reading the request (3–5 min)
- Thinking about what to say (5–10 min)
- Setting up (5 min)
- Filming (including retakes — 10–20 min)
- Uploading and delivering (5 min)
A “quick” shoutout is rarely under 25 minutes. A personalised tutorial can take 90 minutes or more.
Pricing by content type
Short personalised message / shoutout (30–90 seconds)
- Typical time: 25–40 minutes
- Fair price range: $25–$60
- Who pays this: fans gifting for birthdays, anniversaries, special occasions
Personalised Q&A / advice video (3–7 minutes)
- Typical time: 45–90 minutes
- Fair price range: $60–$120
- Who pays this: fans who want a specific question answered or skill explained
Custom performance or tutorial (5–15 minutes)
- Typical time: 90–180 minutes
- Fair price range: $100–$250+
- Who pays this: superfans, collectors, professional buyers
Ongoing series (3+ related videos)
- Typical time: cumulative
- Pricing: charge per video, not for the series — this avoids lock-in and underpricing for unexpected complexity
The anchor effect: set your minimum high enough
Your listed minimum does two things:
- It filters requests — buyers who send requests know your floor
- It signals your value — a $15 minimum signals very different positioning than a $50 minimum
Most creators should set their minimum at the lower end of what they’d accept for their simplest Craft (a 30-second message, single take, no complexity). This minimum should be the floor, not the average.
If you accept every request at the minimum, raise the minimum.
How Auraclip compares to Cameo on pricing
Cameo popularised the personalised video market with celebrities. Their model:
- Creator sets their own price
- Cameo takes 25% of every booking
- Creator keeps 75%
On Auraclip:
- Creator sets their own price
- Auraclip takes 15%
- Creator keeps 85%
At $100 per Craft, the difference is $10 per booking. At 50 Crafts per year, that’s $500 — effectively one free booking you’d otherwise have paid to Cameo.
Cameo also has an application process with no guarantee of acceptance. Auraclip is open to any creator from day one.
Adjusting prices over time
When to raise your price:
- You’re getting more requests than you can fulfill
- Acceptance rate is above 90% (demand exceeds supply)
- You’re consistently producing Crafts beyond your stated minimum fee
- A significant amount of time has passed since you last reviewed your pricing
When to lower your price (rarely):
- Demand has dried up completely and you want to test re-entry
- You’re pivoting to a different niche with a different audience
The most common pricing mistake is never raising the price. The right time to raise is when you’re busy. Busy means demand exceeds supply — the definition of price-increase conditions.
A reasonable raise is 15–25%. Test it. If the request volume drops 30%+ and doesn’t recover, the new price may be above your audience’s current willingness. If request volume holds or improves, you’ve found a better floor.
Building premium tiers
Once you have a base pricing structure, consider offering a premium tier:
Standard Craft — your base minimum, short personalised message Premium Craft — 2× base, longer content or special production Express Craft — 1.5× base, delivered within 24 hours (if you can reliably do this)
The tier structure tells buyers what they’re getting for different price points. It also reduces the number of “can I get a discount?” requests — price options signal that you’ve already thought about their needs.
Don’t offer more than three tiers. More options create decision paralysis and complicate your workflow.
The math on Craft income
Craft revenue is high per-unit but constrained by your time. A realistic ceiling:
- 5 Crafts/week × $60 average = $300/week = $1,200/month gross
- At 85% creator share: $1,020/month net
This assumes each Craft takes ~40 minutes and you can realistically produce 5 per week alongside your other content. More Crafts are possible with time investment; fewer are fine if you’re focused on Drops.
For many creators, Crafts are not the primary revenue source — they’re a supplementary stream between Drop releases. Even 2–3 Crafts per week at $50 each adds $400–$600/month at the margin, with no fixed release schedule.
See also: how to fulfill Craft requests for the production workflow that makes Crafts sustainable.
