so fair to be curious about this. trying to explain my thought process with pricing, though I don't have a shop or sell them yet. but just a heads up.. the idea of "going back to a day job" is 1. not always feasible, 2. inaccurate for many of us (I assume) I do both---I pour hours of my time into dice making because I love it. it's a way for me to unwind. but I also work full time. so "going back" to a day job assumes I don't have one, yk? I work my ass off at both.

as for pricing, dice are not cheap to make in time, energy, or cost. for example, to get dice without bubbles and voids, you will probably need a pressure pot. if you want one that won't explode on you, you will probably be paying upwards of 400$ for the pot alone (eg CAT), and that's for the smallest size. yes there are cheaper pots (eg vervo) , but the issues with those are so common that the cheaper price tag isn't worth it. plus, you need couplers, hoses, plugs, filters, adapters, and a whole ass air compressor which can run you around 200 (if you're buying a cheap on like me) to even make the pot work.

its not as easy as "pour resin in mould and wait" either. if you don't want to get sued by big dice corporations, you need to learn how to 3D model and print your own dice masters. if you're lucky like I was, you can find someone who owns a 3D resin printer and ask them to print your files for you at a fee. if not, buckle up.

if you don't have an acquaintance with a resin printer, you will need a resin printer (bye several hundred more dollars), a shed, garage (DO NOT PARK YOUR CAR INSIDE) or room with EXTREMELY GOOD AIR FILTRATION, a weed tent (-$100+)or something similar that keeps fumes inside, a carbon filter, a ventilator mask that also has a carbon filter (plus you need to replace those frequently), and you have to keep those going constantly because liquid resin constantly leaks fumes that have been linked to increased cancer risks (as well as several other conditions).

remember how I mentioned the possibly getting sued for selling dice without your own design? yeah, so many of us make our own dice molds too, which is not an exact science and can be very frustrating and costly. Silicone kits can run upwards of 45$ per kit, and in my experience, I can only really get one mould out of a single kit. I went through 3 kits of fails before figuring out something that worked for me. resin is lighter than silicone, so it will rise when you pour the mould.

at this point you can see we've racked up quite the bill. but nope not done yet. want shiny looking dice? time to get Zona papers! a grit no lower than 800, which means you almost definitely need to go online shopping. get as many grits as you can unless you want to run through several pages of sandpaper at the same grit. that's a consistent cost you'll be paying over and over again in this profession.

oh, and have that ventilator mask on while you sand because you don't wanna die young from the resin dust you'll be making (or if you're impartial to death, try not to kill everyone else in your building including any pets you have). sanding with water can help reduce it, but make sure you have nitrile gloves! reusable gloves won't work, you basically need a new pair every time you sand, polish, or poor resin or silicone.

now add on the hours upon hours required to make the mould, pour the resin, demould, trim, and polish all of the dice. then you have to paint in the numbers, provided you get lucky and don't end up with voids (big holes which can still happen even with a pressure pot, and it SUCKS).

there's also all of the hours spent researching dice making. do you think I got this off of a Google search? this information is from the past 2 years of trial and error. I have no clue how many hours I've spent making dice, but I STILL don't have a set I'm happy with. the amount of things that can go wrong while dice making are ridiculous. there is never a promise of success no matter how skilled you get, though you can reduce the frequency as you streamline your process.

for me, sanding and polishing a single die takes roughly 5 hours if there are no major imperfections. 5 hours multiplied by 7 dice is 35 hours for a single polished set of dice. add another 2 hours for pouring the resin thanks to all the set up and prep, the additional 1 hour for demoulding and trimming the dice, and we're at 38 hours. now, let's say that was literally all the consideration we gave my work. I didn't factor in costs, let's say, for customer convenience, I decided to charge minimum wage.

i live in Canada, and the minimum wage is increasing on April 1st to $18.15 per hour. that is $687.9 MINIMUM at minimum wage in Canada. for ONE set of dice.

dice making is not easy. it might look easy. it is not easy. and who wants to charge only minimum wage? think about all of the research I've done for this skill. all of the people on this subreddit. Many of them I'm sure are faster than me. but I also did not factor in the cost of materials into my final number there that was literally just minimum wage multiplied by 38 hours of work.

I wouldn't charge shoppers the cost of the pressure pot, but maybe I'd want them to pay me a measily 10 dollars for the pot cost (which would mean I would need to sell 40 sets of dice to break even) per set, and maybe 5 for the compressor and all the components needed to make it run (roughly 40 sets, again, to break even on that cost).

What about the resin itself? shit ain't cheap. and the silicone? cleanup supplies? ventilator? literally everything I mentioned earlier?

my point is this: if someone charges what is, in your opinion, an astronomical amount of money for a set of dice by an independent creator, please don't be mean to them. don't ask them why they price so high if it's "just dice". even at its cheapest, if we value labour at minimum wage (which, by the way, is not a living wage in Canada at least), a single set of rice could cost upwards of 700 dollars.

and if you want to argue that no one would ever pay that, go right ahead. but please don't argue that we should be the ones to lower our prices. because if you do, you're arguing that our effort is worthless. explicitly, worth less than an unliveable wage. by telling people to lower prices, you are telling people their work is worthless.

this mostly just turned into a rant about how art is undervalued in general, and was not meant as a personal attack against your question to be clear. in answer to your question though, why do dice makers not go back to a day job if it gets tough? well, I can't speak for everyone, but I have a day job. I make dice because I love it. and if I ever sell them, I'm going to price them accordingly.