How much should the keyboard cost?

Thoughts on pricing

I’m building the keyboard that I wish existed. If we made what I’m imagining, I wouldn’t mind losing money overall on the project.

And to put my money where my mouth is, I’ve self-funded the entire project so far. When I was employed at Meta, I didn’t think too much about this. Now that I quit, I can’t keep burning my money forever.

Figuring out what to charge so that this project can sustain itself is necessary to make this keyboard a reality.

There are two ways to think about how to price our keyboard:

1. “Top down” - How much do our competitors charge and what do we think is a competitive price given what we’re offering?

2. “Bottoms up” - How much does the keyboard cost to produce?

1) How much do our competitors charge?

For split keyboards with tenting, here are each of our competitor’s costs as of 2/9/26:

1. NUIO /w stands = $597 (this is without palm pads which would add an extra $99)

2. Dygma Raise 2 (wireless version /w tenting) = $539

3. Ultimate Hacking Keyboard 60 v2 (w/ tenting and palm rests)= $539

4. ZSA Voyager = $365

5. KINESIS Freestyle2 w/ tenting kit = $144

This isn’t a fair comparison in my opinion since (2), (3), and (4) are all mechanical keyboards. Mechanical switches do add a lot of cost and as I said they are something we explicitly don’t want.

The NUIO keyboard (1) doesn’t have mechanical switches but is just not in the running at all due to the extreme cost. Even if it was a reasonable price, the non-standard layout isn’t for me.

The KINESIS Freestyle2 (5) is the primary competitor if you want a reasonably priced, standard layout split keyboard. Our keyboard uses more expensive materials (e.g. aluminum body, scissor switches) so our keyboard should cost more than the KINESIS at $144.

That gets us a competitive pricing range from $144 to $365.

I don’t think pricing near the cheapest mechanical keyboard at ~$365 (ZSA Voyager) makes sense. That’s almost a different product category where people are paying a lot because they are mechanical switch enthusiasts.

2) How much does our keyboard cost to produce?

The more I dig into this, the more I realize why people shy away from building physical products and the benefits of selling digital goods.

There are many different costs that go into delivering a finalized keyboard. On a high level there are three categories.

1) Manufacturing cost
The cost of producing a split keyboard is unusually high. Each split keyboard is actually two keyboards in one since the left and right sides need their own custom parts which doubles cost. Couple that with the premium build and each keyboard isn’t cheap to produce.

Besides the cost of the materials and assembly costs, there’s also a bunch of up front cost in here for the tooling, custom molds, designs, and certifications.

2) Tariffs and VAT handling fees
These are all the fees different governments charge when you import products. They vary depending on the region you’re selling in and there are two major buckets to consider where I anticipate customers: US and EU.

US tariffs have changed a lot over the last year. As of now, it seems the latest tariff situation is 0% base rate for keyboards and a 7.5% secondary rate because it’s from China. This is a 7.5% extra cost charged based on the manufacturing cost.

I thought that was bad, then I started reading about how the EU handles imports. There’s a “value added tax” (VAT) which charges ~20% (depending on country) on the retail cost.

Given that, if we sell in the EU we’ll need to charge people more there to cover the VAT.

3) Fulfillment cost
This is the cost of getting the product to you from the manufacturer. There are many options on how to handle this but I see two common models:

1. Ship from China directly to customer (ZSA does this) - Simple since there’s only one warehouse, and country specific taxes are handled by the customer. Shipping will take ~2 weeks with this approach.

2. Freight from China to regional warehouse near customer - Need a warehouse per region (e.g. US + EU) and need to handle country specific taxes up front for the customer which we’d have to bake into the retail price. Shipping can be ~2-3 days with this approach.

Because we only plan to make a limited run focused on quality, the cost of these two approaches is similar. I’m leaning towards shipping from China since it will allow us to support more markets at the expense of shipping taking longer.

To help us decide if we should support markets other than the US, can you answer in the poll below what region you’re from?

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Given our cost modeling and what competitors are charging, my current thought is we should aim to retail at $265. My rationale is:

1. That’s $100 cheaper than the cheapest mechanical split keyboard competitor that has tenting and palm pads.

2. It’s higher than the Kinesis because of the premium build but not unreasonably so like the NUIO at $597.

3. It’s not overpriced given we will still lose money on the first batch since a lot of the cost is up front (e.g. development, certifications, tooling/molds).

This is how it should be. If we do a bad job, we’ll lose money and if we do a good job then I hope more people will purchase it in the future so we can recoup the development costs of bringing this keyboard into the world.

For the people who commit for the first batch, I do want it to be special in some way. For instance, I’d like to add a subtle engraving with the unit number perhaps under the palm pad so you can have a “one-of-one” keyboard.

We’ll offer a discount on the Kickstarter as a thank you for people who are early supporters of the project. After that, we’ll sell more they’ll just be regular units without discount.

If you want to get one of those early units or support this project, consider subscribing to this newsletter. I’ll drop the Kickstarter here first soon so you can secure a discount.

Thanks for reading,
Ryan Peterman