Deodorant Business Plan, With a 12-Month Projection

A deodorant business plan sets out the products you'll make and who buys them, what a stick costs and sells for, the rules that depend on what it claims, and the first year month by month. Natural deodorant is a repeat purchase, which is what makes it worth planning: a customer who likes a scent comes back every month or two, and a shop that stocks it reorders. The ingredients, oils, butters, a powder and essential oils, cost under a dollar a stick; the tube costs about as much again. The line to stay behind is the one between deodorant, which handles odor and is a cosmetic, and antiperspirant, which reduces sweat and is also a drug. In the example below, a personal care maker in Colorado sells sticks direct and wholesale, cream jars and travel sticks, makes a profit from the first month, and ends the year about $33,000 ahead on $55,700 of sales, after paying $20 an hour for the making. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the claims, the projection, the startup budget, and a free template.

The short version

• Describe the business in a paragraph: the products, where you sell, the workspace, the goals.
• Cost a stick with your time in it: the tube costs nearly as much as what's inside.
• Price direct and wholesale separately, and add a travel size at the till.
• Deodorant that handles odor is a cosmetic; one that claims to stop sweat is an antiperspirant and a drug.
• Offer a baking-soda-free version for customers who find baking soda irritating.
• Customers reorder: plan for repeat sales, not one-off ones.
• TaroStack keeps formulas, ingredient lots and every batch together. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Juniper & Ash, a made-up personal care maker in Boulder, Colorado, I use in these examples, writes:

Juniper & Ash makes natural deodorant in paper push-up tubes and glass jars, with and without baking soda, sold at markets, online, and wholesale to zero-waste shops and co-ops. Every tube carries a batch code and a way to reach us. In our first year we plan to supply 20 shops.

Part 2: what a stick costs

A batch of 60 sticks takes about an hour and a half of melting, pouring, capping and labeling. The paper tube is a selling point in zero-waste shops and costs almost as much as the formula inside it. How to put packaging properly into a cost is in packaging cost per unit.

Part 3: customers and prices

A wholesale stick leaves $4.10, less than half a direct one, but a zero-waste shop restocks every month and introduces customers who then buy online. The travel stick is the trial size: cheap enough to try, and a customer who likes it buys the full stick. How to set a wholesale price a shop will accept is in how to price handmade items for wholesale.

Part 4: the claims

What the label says decides which rules apply. A deodorant that reduces or masks odor is a cosmetic. A product that reduces sweating is an antiperspirant, and a deodorant that's also an antiperspirant is both a cosmetic and a drug (FDA), with drug labeling and manufacturing rules. So "keeps you fresh" and "aluminum-free" are cosmetic claims; "stops sweat" or "reduces wetness" isn't. Under MoCRA, a small business is excused from facility registration and product listing but not from adverse event reporting and records, or from keeping safety records, and labels need a US address, phone number or website for reactions. Some people find baking soda irritating under the arm, so a baking-soda-free version and a note of each batch's ingredient lots are worth having. What counts as small under MoCRA is in MoCRA for small businesses. This is general information, not legal advice.

Part 5: the first year, month by month

Fixed costs are $725 a month: a studio share ($150), market fees ($150), marketing and samples ($300), insurance ($50), the website and online shop ($40), and software and card fees ($35). Sales start at 15% of full speed and reach it by month 11:

The year's sales are $55,711 and the profit $32,977, on top of $20 an hour for the making. Because customers reorder, the 250 direct sticks a month at full speed could come from about 400 regular customers buying every six to eight weeks, which is a more reachable number than 250 new customers a month.

Part 6: the startup budget

Get the template

Download the deodorant business plan workbook. Four sheets: your products with price, variable cost and monthly volume at full speed; the 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

Six scents in two formulas, sticks, jars and travel sizes, paper tubes bought by the thousand, and 20 shops reordering on their own schedules. When a customer writes about a rash, a notebook can't say which lot of baking soda or which essential oil was in that stick, or who else got sticks from the batch.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack keeps the formula, the lots and the batches together.

Formulas with versions. Each scent and formula is a recipe with versions, every ingredient by weight, and units convert: shea butter bought by the pound, weighed by the gram. The baking-soda-free formula is its own recipe, and every batch records which one it was made to.

Batches with their lots. Recording a batch takes the ingredients, tubes and labels off stock from the lots used, at what you paid, and notes the lots automatically. One report goes from a stick's code to its batch, its ingredient lots and every customer who got sticks from it.

And the shops' orders. Shop reorders are sales orders that show whether the sticks to fill them are on the shelf while you're still typing, the reorder list works in days of cover so the tubes arrive in time, and margins are reported by product and by customer.

Recipes, batches, lots, recalls and margins by product and customer 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 deodorant business profitable?

It can be. In the example, a maker selling sticks direct and wholesale, cream jars and travel sticks ends the first year about $33,000 ahead on $55,700 of sales, with $20 an hour paid for the making.

Is natural deodorant regulated by the FDA?

Deodorant is a cosmetic, so it must be safe and properly labeled, and MoCRA's record and reporting rules apply. An antiperspirant, which reduces sweat, is also a drug, with stricter rules.

How much does it cost to make a deodorant stick?

In the example, $2.69 for a 2.65-ounce stick sold direct: 90 cents of ingredients, a 75-cent paper tube, a 15-cent label, 50 cents of making and the card fee.

How much should I sell deodorant for?

Cost a stick with your time, then price direct and wholesale separately. In the example, a stick costing $2.69 sells for $13 direct and $6.50 to shops.