From premium materials and hand-finished details, to paying everyone fairly and keeping our planet in mind — there’s a lot behind each journal. Here’s why our products cost what they do and why we think it’s worth it.
We know that the price of our products can raise some questions so we’d like to go into a bit more detail here as to why things cost what they do.
All of our pricing structure considers these things:
Product - We want to make really awesome things
Planet - We’re not going to make sacrifices on ethical choices to create a cheaper product
People - We want to pay people fairly for the job they do for us, from freelancers to packing staff to our full-timers…all paid above the Real Living Wage
Profit - Yes we do need to create some profit otherwise we cannot run a business.
Foil detailing front cover of 2026 13 Moon Journal by Moon Phase Studios
Most of this has been written to help explain things to our USA customers but there are some general factors around pricing that are universal to all our customers.
We ultimately want you to know that when you comment that something is expensive - we totally know how you feel, as we feel it when we fill up our cars or buy our weekly shop.
The world is a crazily expensive place which leaves us trying to navigate our small business within this expensive world, whilst trying to balance the things that are most important to us.
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USA TARIFFS
Apologies for sounding like a broken record but if you’ve not heard me mention this before…There is now an additional 10% added to all UK to USA imports since the new change in rules from President Trump introduced on the 29th August 2025. These are added to the overall shipping cost which is why delivery fees now appear higher.
SHIPPING FEES
Since the new import changes the cost of delivery to the USA from our providers (Royal Mail and DHL) have now gone up. There are less overall international imports into the USA since the changes, hence couriers increasing the costs.
We would LOVE to separate the tariffs and shipping fees into separate line items at checkout, but all the technical wizards we asked for this function said it can’t be done. Sigh.
TRACKING
All of our shipments have (and will) always include tracking. Yes, this costs a little more but we only want to work with trusted couriers who can safely monitor and deliver the parcels we send enabling customers to check on the progress throughout.
USA CURRENCY CONVERSION
The US dollar has weakened against the UK pound since this time last year which has led to a natural increase in costs to US customers when the currency is converted.
MATERIALS
We only use the best quality thick paper stock from trusted UK Forest Society Certified suppliers. The foil covered binding is finished by hand and is stitched, not glued to allow the book to lay flat. We could make far inferior cheaper products by compromising overall quality and ethical practices - but we just won’t do that!
VOLUME
We are a small family business comprising just 5 full time staff. The amount of journals we have made each year is so small compared to big national publishers, who can command a much lower price per unit.
STAFF
Speaking of staff…it takes two of our team working for a full 6 months to imagine, curate, and design each 13 Moon Journal every year (if we’d made a product based on the Gregorian calendar we could repeat it quite easily) but each edition is entirely made from scratch every year.
We hire other artists and therapists to contribute to our journal, who alongside our other full-time team are all paid above the minimum living wage as we believe in paying skilled people fairly.
OVERHEADS
This might be really obvious but we may as well mention VAT, IOSS (thank you brexit), rent, electricity, insurance, software, packaging, advertising, marketing, accountancy, internet, phones, web hosting etc. The whole ‘world being expensive thing’ definitely applies to these eye watering bills.
PROFIT
After 5 years of dedicating our lives to this business we’d be absolutely mental not to try to carve some small sector of profit - otherwise we’re working for nothing. As of yet, my husband and I have had a new kitchen (with a dishwasher, oooo-er!) but everything else has been reinvested back into the business.
Our only hope is to try and explain why things cost what they do, and to let you know if we could do all the above at a lower cost - we would.
To our USA customers: you’ve been hit hardest by these changes, and we’re truly sorry about that. The best tip we can offer is to team up with a friend to share shipping costs or keep an eye out for our pre-order campaigns, when we can often offer the best deals.
Thank you for understanding, for supporting us, and for letting us keep doing what we love even when the world seems to be testing everyone’s patience (and wallets).
Much love from Hayley and the whole MPS team x
The MPS team outside our warehouse and studio in Redruth, Cornwall UK. From L to R Customer Service Manager (and sister-in-law) Rachel, Warehouse Manager Simon a.k.a Mr Tickle, Artist and Owner Hayley (me), Director Matt (husband), Designer and Illustrator Anna.