Prices of patterns

Hi everyone,
is it just me, or do you also think that the prices for patterns have gone way up?
I’m not exactly sure what’s causing it: the price of crude oil, the war in Ukraine....
It’s a shame that some people really want to make money off everything.

Let me respond from the other perspective:
For many authors, it means being fairly compensated for their work.
Buyers usually only see the end result—that is, the finished pattern—but not the many steps that went into creating it.
You don’t go to the bakery and complain that the baker isn’t giving you his rolls for free.
We authors also have the right to be paid for our work.
If you have a job, you get paid for it, don’t you?

I totally get that. It’s not that I’m concerned about whether the authors are getting paid—it’s just that the prices have gone up so much. If the baker charges 50 cents for a roll today and 1 euro tomorrow, I’d want to know why, too

Just for the record: Authors pay high fees to CP and also have to pay taxes on their earnings. I end up with less than a third of the pattern’s price.
You need decent equipment—a laptop, a camera or a good cell phone, the right software—plus you have to invest in yarn and knitting needles, and a lot of time goes into knitting, writing, and test knitting.
  So: You probably meant it ironically, but yes, with costs rising everywhere, this is also related to the war and oil prices.
On top of that, we designers suffer heavy losses from people sharing patterns because many people still don’t understand copyright until they’re caught and held accountable.

Dear Monique,
welcome to our forum.
This topic comes up often here in the forum.
You might also want to read along in this thread:Why do craft patterns always have to cost money?

I’m writing from a buyer’s perspective. Yes, everything has gotten more expensive and we’re all struggling with the crisis, but you can’t just pass everything on to the customer. My husband and I live on a small pension, so we don’t have much to spare. After the “price hike” on Crazypatterns, I had to look for alternatives because crafting is becoming a luxury when you’re on a tight budget. It’s a shame that pricing is all about what the sellers want. Of course, a seller should be compensated for the work they’ve put in. But now people aren’t buying three patterns anymore—just one—or they’re turning to libraries or searching online instead. Is that the point of a price increase—to drive customers away? I’ll be buying less because I can’t afford it anymore—what a shame. 

@Gabi:
Sellers / providers / authors are also struggling with rising prices.

Alternatives for everyone who wants to save money or needs to save money:
We have lots of free patterns in the shop, free patterns in the blog, there are discounted patterns / on sale / special offers and using leftovers is always more affordable. With the prepaid discount / store credit account discount you can save even more.

--> Is there anything there for you?

It’s a strange idea to link price increases to “alienating customers.”
 

@Gabi:
Sellers / vendors / authors are also struggling with rising prices.

That’s exactly what I mean. My point was to show that it’s not just the sellers/vendors/authors who are having a hard time. That’s why I wrote from a buyer’s perspective—so that this side of the story gets brought up for discussion, too. Of course, you take advantage of discounts whenever possible—I’ve been on this platform for a long time, after all. It’s just a balancing act where you can’t forget about the customers. 😉

Creat Owl—it’s not that strange, really. 

@Gabi, I’ll copy this in here again because you apparently only saw the discounts.

Alternatives for everyone who wants or needs to save money:
We have lots of free patterns in the shop, free patterns on the blog, there are discounted patterns / patterns on sale / special offers, and using leftovers always makes things cheaper. With the prepaid discount / store credit account discount, you can save even more.

--> We really do have many free patterns in the shop and on the blog for all popular craft topics. In addition, we really have an extremely large number of patterns that you can make using inexpensive leftovers. And there is also the store credit account / prepaid discount, which is always 5% off. That means that as a customer here, you can do a lot of crafting even with little money and don’t have to rely only on discounts. I don’t think you can say that we forget the customers here.

Also, it should have become clear to you that even the free patterns on YouTube or in libraries are not really free. The time you have to spend researching is also a form of payment. The ads you have to watch in order to enjoy your video are also a form of payment. Nothing in life is truly free, even if it doesn’t cost money.

Hi,
well, I’m pretty shocked and demotivated right now.
To get between 1.16 and 2.40 euros for weeks of work (crocheting, writing, drawing, testing, ...) and a very detailed, step-by-step pattern with 30 to 40 pages—is that supposed to drive customers away?
Seriously?
Not to mention that you’re also available every day, even on weekends, to offer assistance.

Is our work really worth so little?
Sad regards, Marion



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@Marion, the value of your work isn’t measured solely by the money you receive for the pattern, but also by the enjoyment you hopefully get from the work itself, and by the enjoyment the customer gets from using the pattern. Unfortunately, enjoyment alone doesn’t pay the bills, but the value of a pattern isn’t the same as its purchase price. 

Okay, it seems like some people here are taking offense now. I’ve read everything that’s been posted. Apparently, people don’t want to understand—I can tell from the responses. The point was about patterns that aren’t on sale and have gone up in price—ones you might want to make as a gift, which I find more personal than a store-bought gift, for example. There are always two sides to every story, and that’s what I wanted to highlight. I didn’t mean it as an attack, but it seems to have been taken personally.

@Gabi, 
I can understand what you’re saying. Everything is getting more expensive, and people are frustrated. That’s noticeable everywhere. The reasons why designers are sometimes raising the prices of their patterns have already been mentioned in the comments above. I don’t want to go into that again. 

But I would like to mention that Crazypatterns is making a real effort to encourage us designers to create patterns for customers with less money, too. And that is happening. It’s no coincidence that there have been so many patterns for leftover yarn lately. And since these usually aren’t large, material-intensive projects, the patterns don’t cost that much either.

There are also over 3,800 free patterns in all areas of handicrafts. And in our blog on CP you’ll find over 2,200 free patterns. You basically get the same service here for free as you would with a purchased pattern. You can make everything yourself and also contact the designer if you have questions. It just may not be exactly the pattern you had in mind. But in return, you get lots of others for free. You can save the money you didn’t have to spend on them for the pattern you really want. 

Finally, there’s a great tip for all bargain hunters: CP has been running participation challenges in the forum for some time now, where you can win store credit. So with a little effort and luck, you can win store credit and use it to buy the pattern you want. That’s a great thing, isn’t it? 

For the current challenge you can still create one or more posts on the topic of “Garden and Animals” until October 15 and, with luck, win. I took part in the last challenges and won! So there’s still a chance if you want to try.

As a customer, you’re not being driven away here by high prices—quite the opposite. CP and the designers are making a big effort so that everyone can continue enjoying their handicraft hobby even in economically difficult times. 

Best regards, Ina

@Josefa, but just because you enjoy your work doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get a little financial recognition for it.
  After all, we have bills to pay too, and some of us actually do this full-time.

But I’m not going to say anything more about this—the lines are too firmly drawn.
I just can’t understand why patterns, of all things, are “worth nothing.” Creating them is a job like any other.
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Best regards, Marion 

 

Have you ever written a pattern? There’s an insane amount of work that goes into it—if you were to calculate it based on “normal” hourly rates, the price for patterns here is actually unrealistically low.
Check out other platforms and see what English-speaking designers charge—even those prices are way too low compared to the amount of work involved.
I tip my hat to every designer, because I know how much work goes into every pattern.