Why a Custom Watch Strap Costs €200 While a Marketplace Version Is €20

An honest cost breakdown, without romance or marketing

I’ve lost count of how many times this question has come up over the years.

You’re wearing a watch you genuinely care about — maybe an Omega Speedmaster, a vintage Seamaster, a Tudor Black Bay, or something more obscure that only fellow enthusiasts will notice. The watch feels right. The proportions are right. The dial has that balance you don’t get tired of.

Then the strap lets it down.

So you do what everyone does. You open Amazon or AliExpress. €15–20. Next-day shipping. Hundreds of reviews. The photos look fine. And then, somewhere else, you stumble across a small workshop like FinWatchStraps, asking €200 and a few weeks of waiting time.

Same object, right? Leather, thread, buckle.

And that’s where the doubt kicks in.

Is this really about quality, or am I paying for the word “handmade”?

It’s a fair question. And if you’re into watches long enough, you learn to be skeptical of romantic stories. So let’s strip this down to reality — how these straps are actually made, what goes into them, and why the price gap exists.

Two straps that look similar — but aren’t the same product

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:
A €20 marketplace strap and a €200 custom strap are not two versions of the same product.

They are two different categories of objects that happen to share a name.

A marketplace strap is a serial product.
A custom strap is a single, one-off object, made for one person, one wrist, one watch.

That difference alone already explains more than most marketing ever will.

A custom strap is not “made”. It’s built around you

One thing that rarely gets discussed in strap pricing is this: fit.

Not “20mm lug width” — everyone can do that.

I mean:

how the strap curves away from the case,
how it balances the watch head on your wrist,
how it feels after six hours, not six minutes,
how the tail length behaves depending on wrist circumference and taper.

When we make a strap at FinWatchStraps, we don’t start with leather.
We start with measurements, wrist shape, case geometry, and wear preference.

That already kills any notion of standardisation.

A factory strap is designed to fit most people acceptably.
A custom strap is designed to fit one person properly.

Once you accept that premise, the economics start to look very different.

About those “40 operations” — what that actually means

People sometimes assume that “handmade” means slower versions of factory steps.
That’s not how it works.

A custom strap goes through roughly 40 distinct manual operations, many of them small, but none optional.

Not because we want to make things complicated — but because removing any of them visibly degrades the result over time.

Here’s the important part:
One person performs almost all of these steps.

There’s no assembly line. No handoff to the next station. No optimisation through repetition.

The same hands that select the leather:

cut it,
thin it,
glue it,
stitch it,
finish it,
polish it,
inspect it.

That continuity matters. It’s also expensive.

Time: the one thing you can’t fake or outsource

Let’s talk hours.

A typical custom strap takes three to six hours of focused manual work. Sometimes more.

That’s not because the maker is slow.
It’s because certain things physically take time:

Hand saddle stitching cannot be rushed without losing stitch consistency.
Edge finishing requires drying cycles.
Leather needs time to settle after shaping.
Final inspection often leads to small corrections — which is exactly what you want at this level.

Now compare that to a factory strap.

In a production environment, total human labour per strap often drops below one hour — sometimes far below. Not because the workers are better or worse, but because:

machines do the repetitive work,
tasks are split,
tolerances are wider,
no one optimises for your wrist.

That difference alone explains a large part of the price gap.

Leather isn’t expensive. Wasted leather is.

Another common misunderstanding:
“Leather can’t be that expensive.”

Correct — until you care which part you use.

For a premium strap, we don’t cut “wherever it fits”. We:

avoid weak fibre directions,
avoid visual imperfections,
match grain and tone between the two strap halves,
plan for symmetry.

The result?
Material waste increases dramatically.

In practical terms, a custom strap often consumes 1.5–3× more leather than its geometric size suggests.

Factories don’t do this — they can’t afford to.
And for their market, they don’t need to.

The price of a mistake

Here’s something most brands won’t admit.

In custom work, mistakes hurt.

If something goes wrong late in the process:

the leather is gone,
the time is gone,
and the only solution is to start again.

There’s no “send it to rework”.
No batch to dilute the loss.

That risk is silently built into the price — not as padding, but as survival.

Small production economics (and why nobody gets rich making straps)

FinWatchStraps produces around 600 straps per year.

That number isn’t low because demand is weak.
It’s low because human hands have limits.

From that output, the workshop has to cover:

tools and maintenance,
workspace costs,
photography and content,
packaging,
shipping,
taxes,
customer support,
and the simple reality of earning a living in Finland.

If you ever wondered why most strap makers eventually introduce machines — this is why.

Remaining fully hand-made is a choice.
It’s not the financially efficient one.

Why marketplace straps are cheap — and why that’s not a scam

Let’s be clear:
Cheap straps exist because they make sense for many people.

They benefit from:

massive material purchasing power,
low labour costs,
automation,
simplified construction,
minimal after-sales service.

If you:

want to test a color,
need a beater strap,
rotate straps often,
or just don’t want to overthink it,

a €20 strap is often the correct choice.

This article isn’t about guilt.
It’s about understanding what you’re paying for — or not paying for.

When a custom strap truly makes sense

A custom strap starts to make sense the moment you stop thinking of it as a replaceable accessory.

It earns its place when the strap is no longer something you add to a watch, but something that is built specifically for that watch — and for you.

A custom strap is justified when:

Fit is not negotiable.
Not “close enough,” not “this will do,” but a strap that is cut, tapered, and balanced for your wrist and your case geometry. One that lets the watch sit exactly where it should, without constantly reminding you it’s there.
You want a strap that doesn’t exist anywhere else.
The leather selection, the exact cut, the stitch spacing, the edge finish — this combination will never be repeated. Even the maker couldn’t recreate it exactly, because materials, grain, and handwork always vary.
You care about how it will look in two years, not two weeks.
A good custom strap is designed to age, not just survive. The patina, the softening, the way the edges darken — these are outcomes the maker plans for from the very first cut.
You expect longevity, not disposability.
When stitching can be repaired, edges can be reworked, and the strap doesn’t automatically become waste at the first sign of wear.
You value the human connection behind the object.
Knowing who selected the leather, who cut it, who stitched it, and who inspected it — not as a romantic idea, but as a guarantee of accountability and standards.

In those moments, a custom strap stops being “just a strap.”
It becomes a unique, one-off component of the watch itself — designed, built, and finished to the same level of intention as the timepiece it carries.