Stop pricing your furniture by the hour — price the outcome
Most people pricing custom furniture are doing it wrong — they're pricing the wood, not the client.
Here's the shift that changed my business: stop asking "what did materials + hours cost me" and start asking "what is this piece worth to the person buying it." A live-edge dining table isn't a slab of walnut and 40 hours of labor to the client — it's the centerpiece of every dinner party, holiday, and family argument for the next 20 years. Price the outcome, not the input.
Three things I tell every maker trying to go from hobbyist to profitable:
Your first "too expensive" client is a good sign. If nobody ever pushes back on price, you're leaving money on the table.
Photograph everything in progress, not just the final piece. The process sells the price — clients pay more when they've watched the craftsmanship happen.
Stop competing with flat-pack furniture. You're not in that market. The moment you compare your price to IKEA, you've already lost the framing.
Been building out a full curriculum on this (pricing, client psychology, the business side nobody teaches in woodworking school) — happy to answer questions here if anyone's working through pricing their own work right now.