Sharpening Cost's

D

drmikeyb1966

Joined
Aug 2, 2025
Messages
1
I hope I'm not in the wrong forum; it's my first time here. I've purchased numerous Hapstone sharpening pieces, and I love sharpening knives, but I also want to make sure I'm not overcharging someone. I'm a 100% disabled veteran with way too much time on my hands, but knife sharpening is something I've always wanted to do professionally. That's why I waited to have on hand some of the best equipment on the market before starting to be able to provide the customers with more than they anticipated, but I have no clue what to charge. Simple sharpening, reprofile, severely damaged, etc. Could anyone guide me in the right direction please and thank you very much.
 
Where you are located will play heavily into what the market will bear.
For example, in the rural setting I call home, I start out at like $3 for up to 4 inches (for machine sharpening). I have yet to have a local ask me to sharpen by hand.
 
I live in a city of 2.7m. I called every service I could find. Found one guy that did hand sharpening but he let me know he had to close up shop because of health issues. KO worksharp seened to be the most common.

Just saying, a good hand sharpener or even wicked edge would be a real valuable service around here.
 
Sounds like you might be focused on customer satisfaction over making a buck. Hang onto that.

Charge what you think your services are worth. Be modest about it at first. Make it worth their while to give you a chance. When you start getting return customers you can increase your prices. Or not. Depends on how you want to operate the business.

Consider that manual sharpening might overwhelm you depending on the volume of customers you have.

Don’t make promises you can’t keep. If you can’t accommodate the customer’s requirements, don’t pretend that you can.

Set the prices yourself. Customer satisfaction and word of mouth will take care of the rest.
 
I do most of my work on belts. For knives anything 5" and below I charge $7, up to 9" is $10 with anything larger being $13. I give foodservice industry folks a discount. My rate for tools is generally around $8 for household scissors and $10 for loppers & garden shears of any size and same for mower blades. For water stone sharpening I start at $35 (rate negotiable) and this is almost exclusively for local chefs with Japanese knives in the $300-$500 range. I do chisels but no often and recently bought the tools to do saw blades.

If someone has an interesting knife and I have the time I'll often do it on water stones or resin bonded diamonds. If this is done just at my whim I don't charge anything extra. Common repairs like broken tips and bolster reductions are part of sharpening IMO and I don't charge anything extra. Serious damage or massive thinning, that will be a few bucks more based on an examination of the knife.

It's uncommon for anyone to ask me to sharpen a blade by hand with no power tools and when I get the request it's invariably a chef with a Japanese knife.

My prices might be a little bit low but I'd rather a customer be pleasantly surprised by what they get vs feeling ripped off. I know I'm pricing stuff a bit too low for landscapers. Each time I do hedge trimmer I add $5 and they're still surprised at the low price! 😂 If I sharpen something that's a lot of work with the tools I have it's an excuse to buy another tool or jig.
 
Convincing a normal knife consumer that hand sharpening on stones is better than than when sharpened on a Tormek or a 1 x 30 belt sander is a hard sell. I charge $8 a blade, use a belt sander and a hand strop. It takes me about 6 minutes do a knife. Many will say that is way too long on for a powered machine but it's where I'm comfortable with producing a quality product. I have never had anyone specifically ask me to use manual stones and I do plenty of single bevel Japanese chef knives. You'll have to decide what your time is worth and what your customers are willing to pay. The hardest part for me was actually getting customers, marketing and outreach is expensive in time and effort.
 
I consider myself a novice knife sharpener, but I can sharpen those knives confidently. I try to stay away from sharpening other people’s expensive knives just due to the liability. I actually prefer to pay the local knife sharpener who charges five dollars per knife up to 5 inches and then at the dollar per inch after that I believe. Multiple bladed knives are $5 plus $1 per secondary usually. So a Stockman is $7.
He does a great job and he usually does it while I wait. I haven’t sharpened a knife of my own in months and months. At that price I’d much rather somebody else handle it.
I hope my information helps.
 
I am in a major metro area and the only place that I know of that does waterstones is flat rate for western style knives at $15, Japanese at $20 and so on. They do offer belt sharpening as well, and have flat rates on those.

I agree with the above on keep your price point reasonable with your market and skill set. Start simple with basic work based on your speed and the size of the blade. Repairs are almost always extra.

Keep in mind that you need to compensate for your time and for wear and tear / upgrades.

If I do it, it is usually in trade and for friends. I am not looking to supplement my income so I am not going to be much help there.
 
While not disabled, I'm retired and had too much time on my hands. Got reacquainted with sharpening this year. Started ingesting all the content that I could to learn. Tried several new tools. Practiced a lot. Offered my services for free to family, friends, neighbors, and my old Scout troop. After a while, I wondered if this might be more than just a thing to entertain myself. Started looking for places that do sharpening near me. Did not find a lot. So, I set up a website and started a business.

NOTE: I have no idea what I'm doing with any of this. But, I decided that I'll figure it out as I go. :cool:

Here's the link to my site. Includes some typical costs.

NOTE: These prices are based on belt sharpening. I'm too new to using whetstones to offer that as a service.

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Good luck!
Bruce
 
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