People often ask me what a stone sculpture costs to make. They see a finished piece priced at several thousand dollars and wonder whether the stone itself accounts for most of that. The short answer is no. Stone is usually one of the cheaper inputs. The real costs are time, tooling, workspace, and the accumulated skill that lets you shape raw rock into something worth looking at.

Here is an honest breakdown of what it costs to work as a stone sculptor in Australia in 2025.

Raw Material

Stone prices vary enormously depending on type, quality, and source. As a rough guide for Australian suppliers:

• Sandstone (Hawkesbury or similar): $300-800 per tonne. A block suitable for a medium sculpture (say 60 cm tall) might cost $50-150.
• Marble (Australian or imported): $800-3,000 per tonne. A similar-sized block could run $150-400.
• Granite: $500-1,500 per tonne. Offcuts from benchtop fabricators can be a cheap source for smaller pieces.
• Limestone: $400-1,000 per tonne. Varies hugely in hardness and quality.

You also need to factor in delivery. A one-tonne block of marble does not fit in the back of a ute. Crane truck delivery can add $200-500 depending on distance.

For most projects, the raw stone represents perhaps 5-15 per cent of the final price.

Tools and Equipment

A basic hand tool kit — chisels, mallets, rasps, and rifflers — will cost $300-600. These last for years with proper maintenance.

Power tools are where costs escalate:

• Angle grinder with diamond blades: $200-400 for the grinder, $50-150 per blade. Blades wear out regularly.
• Pneumatic hammer and compressor: $1,500-4,000 for a decent setup.
• Diamond wire saw or chainsaw: $3,000-8,000. Only justified for regular large-scale work.
• Dust extraction: $500-2,000 for a workshop-grade unit.

Over a year of regular work, I budget roughly $2,000-3,000 for tool replacement and maintenance.

Workshop and Overheads

This is where many people underestimate costs. You need a space that can handle dust, noise, heavy loads, and water. In Melbourne, renting a suitable industrial unit runs $15,000-30,000 per year. Some sculptors share spaces to split costs.

Other overheads include insurance ($800-1,500 per year), electricity ($2,000-4,000), transport to galleries and installation sites ($1,000-3,000), and photography and marketing costs.

I have found that technology can help manage some of these overheads more efficiently. The Team400 team have been doing interesting work helping small creative businesses model their costs and pricing using AI-driven tools — something that would have saved me a lot of trial and error in my early years.

Time: The Real Cost

A medium-sized figurative sculpture in marble — a torso about 50 cm tall — might take 80-150 hours of carving time. At even a modest hourly rate of $60, that is $4,800-9,000 in labour alone, before materials or overheads.

Abstract forms can be faster or slower depending on complexity. A simple polished form might take 30-40 hours. A deeply carved, detailed piece could take 300 hours or more.

Most sculptors I know do not calculate a strict hourly rate. We estimate the total time, add materials and a margin for overheads, and adjust based on what the market will bear.

Pricing Finished Work

In the Australian market, original stone sculptures typically sell for:

• Small pieces (under 30 cm): $500-2,000
• Medium pieces (30-80 cm): $2,000-8,000
• Large pieces (80 cm+): $8,000-30,000+
• Commissioned public works: $20,000-200,000+

Galleries take 30-40 per cent commission. Private commissions avoid this but require more time on client communication and project management.

Is It Financially Viable?

Very few stone sculptors in Australia make a comfortable living from sculpture alone. Most supplement their income with teaching, restoration work, architectural carving, or memorial lettering. This is the reality of studio sculpture worldwide.

What makes it viable is finding the right mix of commercial work that pays the bills and personal work that feeds the creative practice. The economics are tight, but they are workable with clear expectations and a willingness to diversify.

The cost of stone sculpture is not really about the stone. It is about the years of skill, the workshop, and the time spent turning a rough block into something that did not exist before.