Board Game Price Calculator: How To Price Your Board Games?
How to Calculate The Price For Your Board Game
Our calculator is designed to be simple and easy to use. It covers:
- your base costs of time
- salary
- materials
It also allows you to input a desired profit margin on top.
We hope this calculator helps you make more money for your board game business.
Please input below:
Learn more about starting a board game business:
Where to start?
-> How to start a board game business?
-> How much does it cost to start a board game business?
-> Pros and cons of a board game business
Need inspiration?
-> Other board game business success stories
-> Examples of established board game business
-> Marketing ideas for a board game business
-> Board game business slogans
-> Board game business names
Other resources
-> Board game business tips
-> Blog post ideas for a board game business
-> Board game business manufacturers
-> Board game business hashtags
More Tips On Pricing Your Board Game
How To Price Your Board Game
One of the most challenging aspects to starting a board game business is determining how much to charge for your board game.
When businesses under-price their product, this can be extremely detrimental to their bottom line and reputation.
Often times, businesses under-price their products to drive demand and volume, but that last thing you want is for customers to view your product/service as "cheap." Additionally, this can have a big impact on the type of customer you attract, which can be difficult to recover from.
On the other hand, when businesses over-price, this tends to be just as damaging to the business.
When customers buy, it's likely that they will explore the internet and look at other competitors to ensure they're getting the best value + deal. This is why it's so important that you research your competition and understand where you land in the marketplace.
Here are some factors to consider when pricing your product:
Understand your customer
It's important that out of the gates, you identify the type of customer you want to attract and how much they're willing to pay for your service. One great way to do this is by surveying your customers. Here are some important items you'll want to takeaway:
- Customer demographic: Age, gender, location, etc.
- Buying habits of your customer: What they buy + when they buy
- Level of price sensitivity with your customer
All of these segments will help you identify the type of customer you're attracting and how to price your product accordingly.
Understand your costs
When pricing your board game, it's critical that you first identify all of your costs and consequently mark up your board game so you can factor in a profit.
The actual cost of your board game may include things like:
- The actual cost to make the product (ie. raw materials, supplies, manufacturer).
- Shipping + overhead fees
- Rent
- Operating costs to run your business
You may want to consider creating a spreadsheet with every single expense involved in operating/owning your business. This will give you an idea as to what you need to generate in order to at the very least, break-even and will help you price your products to factor in a profit.
Create revenue goals
When determining the price of your board game, you'll want to create goals for revenue + how much profit you want your board game business to make.
This process is simpler than you may think:
- Think about your breakeven cost (by completing the above step).
- Create a revenue goal based on your break-even cost
- Evaluate the # of items you plan to sell in a given period (make sure this is a realistic number)
- Divide your revenue goal by the number of items you plan to sell
This figure will help determine your estimated price per product in order to meet your revenue goals.
Evaluate your competition
The last piece in determining how to price your board game is by simply looking at your competition.
The best way to do this is by finding like-minded businesses that offer product(s) with similar perceived value. Then, you can compare prices of the different businesses and determine where your board game fits best in the marketplace.
All of these factors play an equal part in pricing your board game, so it's important you evaluate each one individually to come up with an accurate price that will help optimize your business from the start.
Lauren Costanza, founder of Bluminary provides us with a detailed spreadsheet of all of her costs associated with running her business:
I knew this would be a self-funded adventure, and I set aside $3,000. During the first three months, I had a detailed spreadsheet where I tracked where the money was going and what was going toward products versus researching and developing new products.
The spreadsheets involved columns and rows of numbers to craft a budget and gain an understanding of how much would need to be invested at each stage of the process - from gathering supplies to building a website, and shipping materials.
Examples of a successful board game business:
. Facade Games ($360K/year)
Travis Hancock (from Columbus, Ohio, USA) started Facade Games over 8 years ago.
My name is Travis Hancock and I’m the founder of Facade Games. We have published 3 board games, each disguised in book boxes.
Our games have raised over $1 million on Kickstarter, and we’ve sold about 80,000 copies of our games around the world. I work full time from home with my wife Holly. We love inventing and publishing games!
. The Board Game Design Lab ($120K/year)
Gabe Barrett (from Acworth) started The Board Game Design Lab almost 7 years ago.
What’s up my friends. My name is Gabe Barrett, and I’m the creator of the Board Game Design Lab, a podcast and community that helps you design great games people love.
Including all the revenue generated by sponsorships, ads, books, and games, I average around $10,000 per month in revenue. And while that number pales in comparison to some of the awe-inspiring incomes you see on this site, I think it’s important to realize that you can make a full-time living in even the tiniest of niches if you really lean into your target audience and provide them with what they want and find helpful. My community only consists of around 8,000 people currently, but that’s more than enough to generate enough income to support my family of 5.
. Hill Gaming Company ($24K/year)
Casey Hill (from Camarillo, California, USA) started Hill Gaming Company almost 8 years ago.
My name is Casey Hill and I run Hill Gaming Company, a tabletop/board game company focused on producing highly interactive and beautifully illustrated games. Throughout my childhood I was always encouraged to be entrepreneurial.
Although it can vary month to month, we typically do about $2,000/month in sales. Although we run direct marketing to grow sales, we are also blessed by strong organic referrals from our supportive fans!
. Good Look Gamer ($24K/year)
Dennis Michels (from Brielle, South Holland, The Netherlands) started Good Look Gamer almost 6 years ago.
Hello, my name is Dennis Michels, I run Good Look Gamer, a webstore for modern board and card games. Our products vary greatly, as new games are released daily. We take a lot of pre-orders for upcoming games, sometimes months before they are released.
Our turnaround currently is around $1600 per month, and we’re still growing.
. Bingo Card Creator ($18K/year)
Beth Kovalcik (from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, USA) started Bingo Card Creator over 8 years ago.
My name is Beth K., a busy mother of 5 and owner of BingoCardCreator.com. This SAAS (software as a service) online business provides a custom software solution for the creation of custom bingo cards. Most of our customers (about 60%) are educators while the other 40% is comprised of clients using our service for their business or for personal purposes.
Hey! 👋 I'm Pat Walls, the founder of Starter Story.
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