Tool 1 of the Get Paid Kit · For saddlers

Saddler hourly rate calculator

This free calculator works out the hourly rate a freelance saddler should charge, starting from the income you need — then builds the per-piece prices clients actually pay out of real bench hours. Nobody books “an hour of saddlery”; they book a saddle reflocked, a bridle repaired, a bespoke saddle made to a horse’s back. With the honest presets below the rate lands near $80 an hour, $638 for a full day — and the conversions that price is built from: a full reflock is about two hours at the bench, $160 of labour, a bridle repair about forty-five minutes, $60 — and a bespoke saddle carries twenty hours or more of bench time, $1,600 of labour, with the hides billed as their own lines on top.

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The pricing reality for freelance saddlers

Pieces are bought flat and earned by the hour, and the two only agree if the piece price was built from the bench hours in the first place. A reflock quoted from the last reflock assumes the same flocking, the same tree, the same state of the panels — and the saddle on the bench has its own opinions. Inside the flat price sit the stripping, the checking, the flocking, the fitting visit and the adjustment after the horse has been ridden in it. A price copied from a price list carries all of that whether it covers it or not. Price the bench hour first, and the piece price becomes an assembly: so many hours at the bench and the horse, at a rate that adds up.

This is a workshop trade with a fitting round attached, and the round is the pricing trap. Saddles are fitted at yards, on horses, in arenas — travel and standing-around time that bills nobody directly — while the bench stands rented and empty at home. The presets below use a 60% billable share: the hours stitching, flocking and fitting bill, and the yard visits, consultations and ordering take theirs first.

The numbers below are starting presets, not a survey: a $50,000 target income, $15,100 a year of expenses — workshop rent leads, with leather and materials stock, vehicle and fuel for fitting visits, tools, training and insurance — a 22% tax estimate, four weeks of vacation, a 40-hour week and 60% billable time. The hides for a bespoke commission, chosen with the client, are billed to the job as their own lines, as the maths section explains. With those starting numbers the calculator lands near $80 an hour.

Your numbers — saddler presets

Your recommended rate

$0 / hour
$0Day rate (8 hours)
0Billable hours per year
Income + expenses needed$0
Grossed up for tax$0
With profit margin$0
Working weeks0
Total working hours0
Billable hours0

Your rate is saved on this device only, so the Proposal Generator can show it when you price a project.

Easy to miss

Costs saddlers forget to put in the rate

  • The fitting round. Saddles are fitted where the horses are: yards, arenas, an hour’s drive each way, and a horse that needs twenty minutes to settle before it can be assessed. Fitting time is skilled time — it belongs in the rate or on the invoice as its own visit line, and the one place it cannot live is nowhere.
  • The leather float. Hides, panel leather, thread, wool flock and hardware, bought before they are billed. Standard repair materials ride inside the rate; a bespoke commission’s chosen hides are a five-figure temptation to absorb quietly — they are the client’s line, priced when the client chooses them.
  • The second fitting. A new or reflocked saddle settles, the horse changes shape, and the check visit a month later is part of doing the job properly. If the piece price never carried it, the check is a favour funded by the next client’s job.
  • Machinery and hand tools. The sewing machine, the splitter, the edge tools and knives — saddlery tools are bought for decades and serviced for real money. A small annual line keeps the bench equipped; ignoring it turns a breakdown into a crisis in the middle of a commission.
  • The repair queue’s small jobs. A replaced billet, a restitched girth strap, a snapped cheekpiece the week before a show — small, urgent, and forever quoted from kindness. Priced from the bench hour they are fair to both sides; priced from kindness they quietly tax every bigger job.
The maths

How this calculator works

Start with the hours you can genuinely sell. Take 52 weeks, subtract your vacation weeks, multiply by your hours per week, then multiply by your billable percentage. With the saddler presets — four weeks off, 40 hours a week, 60% billable — that is 1,152 billable hours a year: the hours stitching, flocking and fitting that clients can pay for, once the fitting round and the ordering have taken theirs.

Next, work out what those hours must bring in. Add your desired income and your annual business expenses together — $65,100 on the presets — gross the total up for tax by dividing by one minus your tax rate — at a 22% estimate, divide by 0.78 to get $83,462 — then add your profit margin to reach $91,808 and divide by your billable hours. That final number, $80, is the rate below which the year stops adding up.

Now translate the hour into the per-piece prices clients actually pay. A full reflock — stripped, checked and reflocked — is about two hours at the bench: $160 of labour. A bridle repair is about forty-five minutes, $60. A bespoke saddle is twenty hours or more of bench time before it ever meets the horse: $1,600 of labour. The wool, thread and standard leather those hours use are inside the stock float the rate already carries; the hides for a bespoke commission, chosen with the client at a price the client can see, sit on top as their own lines.

Disclaimer: This is a planning estimate, not tax advice. Tax rates, deductions and allowances vary by country, state and business structure. Enter the rate you expect to pay, and check significant decisions with a qualified accountant.
Next: build a proposal with this rate Use the general rate calculator
Questions

Saddler rate questions

Because the piece price is built out of bench hours whether you count them or not: the stripping, the stitching, the fitting, the check visit after the horse has settled into it. The hourly rate is how you check a price-list price against your own rent, your own leather bill and your own diary. Saddlers who skip the check often find their busiest season was their worst paid, and the piece prices, not the workload, were the reason.
Because the bench is not the whole week. For every hour stitching there is a yard to visit, a horse to assess, leather to order and a client to talk through options at the pace clients decide things. Sixty percent is a realistic start for a solo saddler. A clear bench week of commissions bills a higher share; a week of fitting rounds bills less. Set the number that matches your diary, not your best week.
The labour, yes — twenty hours or more of it, priced at your rate. The hides themselves, no: they are chosen with the client, from leathers at honestly different prices, and one client’s taste for the finest hide should not be averaged into every other job. Price the hides as their own line when they are chosen and the bench time at your rate, and the client sees exactly what their money bought — skill, and skin.

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