Does the craft market break-even calculator use my own card fees?

Yes. The two card fields are editable. The defaults are Square Canada's published in-person credit rate of 2.5% per tap, insert or swipe. Interac debit is 0.75% plus CA$0.07 and Square Online is 2.8% plus CA$0.30, so set the fields to match your own reader.

Why is the hourly rate so low?

A market day is often ten hours between setup, selling and pack-down, and the table fee is paid before any sale. The hourly figure is honest, which is why the break-even unit count matters more at a market than on a marketplace.

What a market table has to sell before it pays for itself

Q: What counts as a fixed cost at a market?

Anything paid whether you sell one item or thirty: the table fee, fuel, parking, an overnight stay and a helper's wage. Material cost is not fixed, because it is charged against each item actually sold.

A craft fair or farmers' market costs money before a single item leaves the table: the booth fee, the drive, the parking, the day off. This calculator turns those fixed costs and your price into the one number that decides the day — the number of items you must sell before you have made a cent for yourself.

Booth / table fee (CA$)

Travel, fuel, parking (CA$)

Hours worked (setup + on-site)

Material + packaging cost per item (CA$)

Sale price per item (CA$)

Card processing fee (%)

Card processing fee per sale (CA$)

Items you expect to sell

The day, in one number

Fixed costs (booth + travel)—

You keep per item, after cost and card fee—

Items to break even—

Profit at the expected sales—

Your hourly rate that day—

What it takes

Items to earn CA$25/hour—

Items to earn CA$50/hour—

Profit at 20 items sold—

Profit at 30 items sold—

Card processing defaults to Square Canada's published in-person credit rate, 2.5% per tap, insert or swipe (read 6 November 2026; Interac debit is 0.75% + CA$0.07 and Square Online is 2.8% + CA$0.30). Change the two card fields to match your own reader — the arithmetic is the point, not the default.

The arithmetic on a real table

A one-day Canadian holiday market: CA$150 for the table, CA$40 of fuel and parking, ten hours between setup, the day and the pack-down. A CA$35 item with CA$12 of materials and packaging, card sales processed at 2.5%.

Line	Amount
Booth fee + travel	CA$190.00
Sale price	CA$35.00
Materials and packaging	-CA$12.00
Card processing, 2.5% of CA$35.00	-CA$0.88
You keep per item	CA$22.13
Items to break even	9

Nine items, not one. At eight items the day is CA$13.00 down; at nine it is CA$9.12 up. Everything past the ninth item is yours to keep at CA$22.13 a piece, which is why the shape of a market day matters more than the total: at 20 items the day pays CA$252.50, and at 30 it pays CA$473.75.

Across those ten hours, break-even is CA$0.91 an hour. Twenty sales is CA$25.25 an hour; thirty is CA$47.38. To earn CA$25 an hour you need 20 items.

Three findings that change how you price a market

A market-day discount raises the break-even by 44%. Take 20% off for the day — CA$35 down to CA$28 — and the per-item contribution falls from CA$22.13 to CA$15.30. The table now needs 13 items, not 9, before you have made anything. Even selling 20 items, the day pays CA$116.00 instead of CA$252.50, and the hourly rate halves.

Doubling the booth fee doubles the break-even. At a CA$300 table the fixed cost is CA$340 and the day needs 16 items; 20 sales still only clears CA$102.50, or CA$10.25 an hour. The premium market has to sell roughly twice as much to be worth the same day.

Low price points cannot carry a table. Keep the same CA$12 material cost and sell at CA$15 instead of CA$35: you keep CA$2.63 per item, the break-even is 73 items, and a 20-item day loses CA$137.50. Bundling the small items into a CA$35 set is the same arithmetic seen from the other side.

The fixed cost is paid before the doors open, so the only lever the day gives you is the per-item contribution — price minus material minus card fee. Raising the price and cutting the packaging cost both move it directly; a busier market only helps if it moves it above the break-even.

What to do about it

Compute the break-even before you book the table. Fixed cost divided by what you keep per item is the whole calculation, and it takes a minute.
Write the break-even on a card and put it in the till. It is the number that tells you whether the day is working while there is still time to change it. There is a printable one-page version at the market day break-even card — fill in four numbers before you pack the car.
Bundle the cheap items. A CA$15 item with a CA$12 cost cannot pay for a table; three of them in a CA$40 set can.
Price the "market special" as a set, not a discount. A discount cuts the contribution on every sale; a bundle adds a second item's margin to it.
Count the hours honestly. Setup, the drive and the pack-down are part of the day, and they are the reason the hourly rate is the number worth watching.

Keep the market year straight in one sheet — US$19

The GST/HST, Expense & Mileage Tracker (Canada) logs every market day's mileage and expenses against your sales, so the drive to the fair is not money you forget at tax time. US$19, US$11.40 with code LAUNCH40 at checkout — set up for Google Sheets, one tab per quarter.

Get the tracker — US$11.40 with LAUNCH40

Not ready to buy? Run your marketplace export through the free report instead — profit per item after fees, no signup.

Questions sellers ask

Does the calculator use my own card fees?

Yes. The two card fields are editable, and the defaults are Square Canada's published in-person credit rate — 2.5% plus nothing per tap, insert or swipe. Interac debit is cheaper (0.75% + CA$0.07) and Square Online is dearer (2.8% + CA$0.30), so set the fields to match whichever you use.

What counts as a fixed cost?

Anything you pay whether you sell one item or thirty: the table fee, the drive, parking, an overnight stay, and a helper's wage. Material cost is not fixed — it is charged against each item that sells, which is why it sits in the per-item contribution.

Why does the hourly rate look so bad?

Because a market day is ten hours of work and the table takes its money first. The hourly figure is honest, which is exactly why the break-even matters more here than on a marketplace: the table fee does not care how busy the market was.

Taking the card at the market is cheaper than selling online: what each Canadian card rate costs per sale, and where the 30¢ lands hardest. Fees and rates checked November 2026: Square Canada's published processing rates (in-person credit 2.5%, Interac debit 0.75% + CA$0.07, Square Online 2.8% + CA$0.30). Every figure on this page is produced by the same model the calculator runs — booth fee and travel are fixed, materials and the card fee come off each sale, and the break-even is the fixed cost divided by what one item leaves behind. Change the inputs and the numbers change with them.

Market dates, fee changes and the CRA deadlines that move

One short email when something real changes — a filing date, a threshold, a marketplace fee table. Nothing else.

Stored on this site's own database. Reply to any email to come off the list.