Maybe you’ve been a woodworker for years, or it’s a hobby you’ve picked up recently.
If it’s something you thoroughly enjoy, woodworking can turn into a successful business.
There are now more opportunities than ever to monetize our woodworking skills online.
In this post, I’ll go over the most profitable woodworking business ideas that have a fighting chance in today’s market.
Wooden goods are still in demand today, in part because they are more environmentally friendly than their synthetic counterparts.
They also have a timeless appeal that will never go out of style.
High-quality wooden goods are also almost certain to last a lifetime.
That’s why many folks think of them as smart investments.
The Top Woodworking Business Ideas To Try Out This Year
You can start a small business out of your love of woodworking in a plethora of ways.
Some of these strategies call for selling more lightweight items that you could manufacture at a reasonably fast pace.
Some require more work and produce higher-end goods that you may sell for more money.
I’ll also go through how you can earn money by instructing people in woodworking.
Sell Your Wood Projects On Etsy
Selling creations on Etsy is one of the most well-known ways that crafters may earn money.
Fortunately, the platform also has a sizeable market for woodwork.
I’m sure you’ve heard of it, but Etsy is an internet marketplace where small businesses sell handcrafted goods.
The following are some examples of the most lucrative woodworking projects you can sell on the platform:
Wooden wall art
- Art and photo frames
- Wooden pens and pencils
- Custom cutting boards
- Candle holders
- Jewelry boxes
- Wooden toys and puzzles
- Laquered wood chopsticks
- Wooden jewelry
- Wooden decor
- Birdhouses
- Utensils
- USB drives
- Card and phone stands
- Birdhouses
- Planter boxes
- Storage boxes
- Coat racks
- Fruit bowls
- Wood signs
- Cup racks
- Clocks
- Wooden chimes
- Wooden Beer mugs
Essentially, if you can make it, there’s someone out there who’s likely to buy it!
Etsy is straightforward to use, and you go live, selling your wares in a couple of hours. To get started, you will need to:
- Come up with a distinctive name for your online shop.
- Snap high-quality photos of your products
- Come up with optimized product descriptions.
Since you’re selling to a ready-made customer base on Etsy, it’s ideal for newbies.
You can concentrate on creating enticing descriptions and taking beautiful images of your products.
Doing so will ensure that you appear high in search results.
On Etsy, a seller account can be created for free, and there is no ongoing charge.
Even so, there are expenses associated with being an Etsy seller.
Your item can be listed for $0.20, and this price is due each time a listing is renewed.
Additionally, each time you sell an item on Etsy, transaction costs totaling a little over 6% is deducted.
Despite these costs, starting a business on Etsy is inexpensive and beginner-friendly.
Just remember to include costs in your item pricing.
Sell Custom Furniture
Building custom furniture can be a fantastic woodworking enterprise for you if you like taking on bigger projects and having a creative brief to work from.
Take some images and use them to promote your services after you’ve made some furniture for yourself or your friends and family.
Selling specially crafted furniture can be done in many different ways.
Posting the images on local Facebook groups and the Facebook Marketplace is one of the simplest ways to get started.
Your only costs will be the materials you use, as you now have a free venue to promote your work!
Here are some furniture items that will sell like hotcakes:
- Beds and dog beds
- Wall shelving
- Bookshelf
- Chairs
- Desks
- Storage cabinets
- Baby cradles and cribs
- Deck/patio furniture
- Island butcher block
- Doors
- Consoles
- Dining tables
- End tables
- Vanities
- Closets
Owning a website is a small investment that will pay off greatly for your custom woodworking business.
With Bluehost, you can launch your own business website for as cheap as $2.95 per month.
If you’re committed to your business, you will need this valuable asset.
By presenting each woodworking product you produce and fostering trust with your clients, your website will act as your online portfolio.
Your website may help you expand your business by making it easy for potential clients to locate you online with a bit of help from SEO.
At the very least, you should set up some social media accounts and post photos of your work there.
If you’re a bit more old-school, take the time to showcase your products at local events.
Lastly, you should make sure that you account for the time-intensive nature of creating custom furniture in your pricing.
Launch A Woodworking Blog
A woodworking blog is a terrific way to monetize your talents if you enjoy woodworking but aren’t interested in making things for other people.
Starting a blog about a passion project means you’ll never run out of topics to write about.
Your woodworking blog may feature the following:
- Your favorite woodworking tools that you can recommend
- Updates about your projects
- How woodworking impacts your life as a creative endeavor
- Tips for woodworking
- Tutorials for projects
So, how will you monetize your woodworking blog? Easy! You could:
- Allow display ads on your blog
- Include affiliate links to products that you write about
- Sell physical/digital copies of your ebooks or woodworking plans
- Collaborate with other brands in your niche
Although blogging doesn’t involve physical labor in the same way that carpentry does, it does demand time and commitment.
To ensure that your blog receives a lot of attention, you must invest time in SEO and marketing in addition to authoring your posts.
In the blogging world, more readers equal more money.
Consider selling merchandise or a wooden decor item that you’ve made if you decide to make a living from your blog.
Some of your future fans might want one of your works in their homes.
However, selling digital goods is considerably simpler!
Digital products are fantastic since you can sell each one an unlimited number of times.
Starting a blog is undoubtedly a lot of work.
But you can pull it off if you’re truly serious about your craft and want to share your knowledge with others.
Launch A Woodworking YouTube Channel
What do most people do when they need help with a skill or particular technique?
They’ll go on YouTube!
If some niche is even remotely popular, there’s some creator out there with tutorials for that niche on YouTube.
There are a ton of folks who have achieved success on YouTube by making tutorials for skills they possess.
You can start your own YouTube channel and share your woodworking expertise with others if you regard yourself to be pretty experienced.
It’s okay if you’re just getting started!
Viewers enjoy following someone on their journey as they go through each project.
You will give viewers a chance to avoid your mistakes and replicate your successes.
Once your YouTube channel is live, you can earn through:
- YouTube Affiliate Marketing
- Ads (through the YouTube Partner Program)
- Brand sponsorships
You can start running ads on your videos after you have more than 1000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of video watch time.
Before this, though, you can make money by adding affiliate links in your description.
If you establish yourself as an authority figure in your niche, other brands will want to collaborate with you.
They’ll pay you to try out their products or sponsor your upcoming projects.
Related Reading: How To Get A YouTube Sponsor – Get To Know Here.
Teach An Online Woodworking Course
An online course is a fantastic alternative if you’re into the thought of imparting your knowledge to others and want passive revenue.
Depending on your skill set and the effort you choose to put into it, there are many ways to build an online course.
You may start by creating instructional videos to post on a platform like Skillshare.
Instead of someone purchasing your course, you are compensated based on how many views you’ve had from paying members.
It’s a simple method that requires little money up front to produce your tutorials.
The second (and most lucrative) choice is to develop your own course.
If you’re thinking of starting a woodworking blog, this is a wonderful fit because you’ll need your own website for it.
Though it might appear complicated, creating your own online course is actually very straightforward.
Many free and inexpensive tools are available online to help you with the process.
All you have to do is write, take pictures, make videos, or combine all three to generate your content.
Then use an online course platform like Thinkific or Teachable to turn it into an interactive course.
Hold In-person Woodworking Classes
Hosting in-person woodworking lessons could be one of the terrific woodworking business ideas for you if you enjoy interacting with others.
You can start small by teaching your students how to make frames.
Maybe you only want to teach advanced learners who want to take on more complex projects.
It’s entirely up to you!
Simple projects like wooden pencil manufacturing can be taught, as well as more difficult ones like building a kitchen cabinet.
You would need to rent an appropriate venue or host the class in your own workshop to accomplish this.
Of course, there are extra expenses for in-person classes.
You would have to pay for:
- Lumber for you and your students to work on
- Tools and woodworking equipment
- Insurance
You can factor these costs into the fees that your students will pay you.
If you love feeling like you’re a part of your community, this is undoubtedly one of the most enjoyable business concepts for woodworkers!
Ideally, you’ll get to meet a lot of new people.
They will spread the word about you if they enjoy your classes.
There are a few options for marketing your classes.
Social media comes to the rescue again!
Posting on local Facebook groups would be your first step.
You might also consider placing flyers on local noticeboards or buying ads in the neighborhood paper.
Hosting live classes does require more funds upfront than most of the suggestions on this list.
It can, however, also be highly lucrative financially and socially.
Sell Woodworking Plans and Blueprints
Another fantastic approach to optimizing your woodworking skills to generate a passive income stream is by selling woodworking plans and blueprints.
If you enjoy designing various projects, you could produce PDF instructions or plans to market online.
The setup for this venture is time-consuming because you’ll need to explain and document each step thoroughly.
Once you’re done, though, you can sell each plan as many times as people are willing to buy it.
This implies that you can get passive income every month without needing to develop any new products.
Your blueprints or plans could be sold online through Etsy or your own website.
You could display the finished product and encourage people to purchase the instructions if you started a blog or social media account.
Open A Woodworking Shop – Woodworking Business Ideas
Maybe there are already many woodworkers in your area, and the market is pretty fierce.
If so, why not create a shop and make money by selling other people’s work?
You can purchase their best products, then resell them with profit margins that are within reason.
You’ll have to give out contracts and generate a commission by selling their stuff.
You need to stock a range of wooden goods in your store and open it in a competitive marketplace if you want to succeed in this line of work.
If you’d like to add your own touches to existing wood furniture, try a furniture flipping business.
You’ll have to source vintage or discarded wooden furniture, then make the necessary fixes and upgrades.
Related Reading: How To Start A Car Transport Business – Learn More Here.
Construction
The expertise of woodworkers is required for many building and construction projects.
People hire woodworkers to build cabinets into the wall, hold aluminum sheets in place with wood components, decorate ceilings with moldings, or install wooden flooring.
You can establish yourself as the premier woodwork contractor in your area!
The more folks know about you, the better it is for your company.
This business idea will work best in areas where folks are redoing their homes.
Woodworking Business Ideas – How To Start
Acquire The Proper Licenses
Like any business, you’ll have to register yours as the business owner.
You must register as a sole proprietorship company for a small woodworking business.
You might also need a trade license and GST registration.
Plan Your Products
What are you going to sell?
Once you’ve settled on your product/s, you’ll have to figure out your manufacturing schedule, procedure, and cost.
Source The Tools and Materials You’ll Need
You might already have this stuff, so skip this step.
If not, you’ll have to select the proper tools and machinery you’ll need for production.
Natural resources like wood and other consumable items should be acquired as well.
A modest woodshop only needs a few essential tools to get the job done.
Establishing a large-scale business, however, requires the purchase and installation of fancier machinery.
Improve Your Process
Making adjustments and enhancements to the production process would be a smart move.
It’s always better to refine the way you work. This becomes crucial if you have workers under you.
Quality Control
Your products need an examination to make sure there are no issues or flaws.
Only those products that pass the check are delivered to the buyer.
Make sure you package the products properly to avoid damage during transit.
Related Reading: How To Start A Credit Repair Business From Home – Find Out Here.
Final Thoughts – Woodworking Business Ideas
Woodworking has always been a lucrative hobby because high-quality crafts never go out of style.
It’s time to monetize your skills and share your creations with others.
Try a woodworking business idea above and get craftin’.
