Cinnamon Roll Business Plan, With a Projection

A cinnamon roll business plan is a plan built around bake day. A large roll with cream cheese frosting has about 61 cents of ingredients in it, and the rest of its cost is the hour and a quarter of mixing, rolling, cutting and frosting each pan takes. Bake three pans at once and that time drops to about $1.11 a roll, so the plan takes orders for set bake days and sells what it bakes: singles at pop-ups, preordered half-dozen boxes, frozen take-and-bake pans and rolls for cafés. In the example below, a bakery in Georgia builds a cinnamon roll line and ends its first year about $13,300 ahead on $60,900 of sales, with every hour paid at $20. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the first year month by month, the startup budget, and a free template.

The short version

• Describe the business in a paragraph: the rolls, where they sell, the goals.
• Cost a roll from the pan: ingredients, box, time at three pans a bake, fees.
• Take preorders for set bake days, so every bake is a full one.
• Half-dozen boxes earn the most; cafés buy the most rolls for the least.
• Take-and-bake pans sell from the freezer between bake days.
• Cream cheese frosting may rule out a home kitchen; check your state's cottage food list.
• TaroStack costs every bake from what you paid for its ingredients and dates every pan in the freezer. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Red Clay Bakehouse, a made-up bakery in Athens, Georgia, I use in these examples, writes:

Red Clay Bakehouse bakes large cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting twice a week in a shared commercial kitchen, and sells them at Saturday pop-ups and markets, in preordered half-dozen boxes, as frozen take-and-bake pans, and to four cafés in Athens. In its first year it aims to bake 2,000 rolls a month.

Part 2: what a roll costs

The oven, power and kitchen are in the fixed costs here, not in each roll. The time is the biggest part of every roll, and it falls by almost half when three pans go into one bake; the arithmetic is in how to price baked goods.

Part 3: customers and prices

In a month at full speed the half-dozen boxes bring $2,002 of the $4,751 of contribution, the singles $1,415, the take-and-bake pans $863 and the cafés $472. The cafés take 400 rolls a month and earn the least; they're steady and they put the name in front of people every morning, but the boxes are what to grow. Café pricing is in how to price baked goods for wholesale.

Part 4: the first year, month by month

Fixed costs are $1,585 every month: the shared commercial kitchen ($900), pop-up and market fees ($300), insurance ($70), the website and ordering ($50), ads ($200), freezer upkeep ($30), and software and card fees ($35). Sales start at 15% of full speed:

The year's sales are $60,928 and the profit $13,290, with every hour paid at $20. The first four months lose money, $2,064 at the lowest, while the preorders build. A full month is about 2,000 rolls, eight bake days of about 250 rolls each, which is more than one pair of hands.

Part 5: the startup budget

The $5,900 spent before working cash is earned back in month 10, when the cash reaches $6,957. Whether rolls with cream cheese frosting can be made at home instead is in how to start a cottage food business.

Get the template

Download the cinnamon roll business plan workbook. Four sheets: your rolls, boxes and pans with price, variable cost and a month at full speed; the first year, month by month, with sales, profit and cash; your fixed costs; and your startup budget with working cash. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Where this stops working

Two bake days a week sized to the preorders, cream cheese and butter bought by the case, take-and-bake pans in the freezer with their dates, four cafés with standing orders, and butter that cost more this month than last. A notebook can't say what this week's rolls really cost, or which freezer pans to sell first.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack costs every bake from what you paid for its ingredients and dates every pan in the freezer.

Every bake costed. The roll is a recipe with sub-recipes for the dough, the filling and the frosting, so each bake takes the flour, butter and cream cheese off stock and is costed from what they cost, and butter's price rises show up in the price-creep report.

Freezer pans with dates. Each bake of take-and-bake pans gets a lot and a date, recorded automatically, and the picking list puts the earliest first, so the oldest pans sell before the new ones.

Cafés and preorders. Each café's standing order and each preordered box is a sales order, with one picking list for bake day, so the bake is sized to what's ordered.

Recipes, sub-recipes, costing and lots are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.

Questions people also ask

Is a cinnamon roll business profitable?

It can be, with full bakes. In the example, a cinnamon roll line ends its first year about $13,300 ahead on $60,900 of sales, with every hour paid at $20, and the preordered boxes bring the most.

How much does it cost to make a cinnamon roll?

In the example, 61 cents of ingredients for a large roll with cream cheese frosting, and $1.11 of time when three pans go into one bake.

Can I sell cinnamon rolls from home?

It depends on your state's cottage food rules and the frosting: cream cheese frosting may not count as safe at room temperature. Check your state's list before you sell from home.

How much does it cost to start a cinnamon roll business?

In the example, $9,900, with the mixer, the freezer, the pop-up setup and $4,000 of working cash the biggest parts.