How to Price Banana Pudding: A Cup, With a Calculator

To price an 8-ounce cup of banana pudding you add up its full cost first: the custard, cream, bananas and wafers by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the cup, lid and label, and a share of overhead like rent and power. That's what one cup costs you. Then set the price so that, after card and selling fees, it leaves the margin you want: price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − fee rate). For an 8-ounce cup that costs $2.83 to make, a 55% margin after 3% fees means $6.75, rounded up to $7.00. The vanilla wafers are the biggest single ingredient, more than the cream or the bananas. Restaurants pay less a cup and sell it on their own dessert menus. In the example below, a Mobile banana pudding maker prices its cups for pop-ups and restaurants.

The short version

• Full cost = custard, cream, bananas and wafers a cup + your time + cup, lid and label + overhead.
• Price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − fee rate).
• Count your time at a real hourly rate, even if you don't pay yourself yet.
• Price the wafers and cream carefully; they cost the most.
• Keep it cold: a cup that sat warm is a cup thrown out.
• Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
• TaroStack costs each cup from its recipe and what each batch used. More below.

What goes into a cup's cost

The business behind these cups is in banana pudding business plan, and keeping cups cold at a pop-up in hot and cold holding temperatures.

An example: an 8-ounce cup

Dauphin Street Pudding Co., the made-up banana pudding maker in Mobile, Alabama, I use in these examples, makes 40 cups at a time:

At a 55% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $2.83 ÷ 0.42 = $6.75, so $7.00. At $7.00 a cup, each leaves $3.96. The first pop-ups charged $5.00, which left $2.02. Restaurants pay $4.25 a cup on a standing order, which leaves $1.29: less a cup, but no pop-up fee, no hours at a cooler, and a batch that's known two days ahead. Why it's made in a shared kitchen, not at home, is in alabama cottage food law.

Get the calculator

Download the banana pudding price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's ingredients, amounts and costs, the cups it makes, the hands-on minutes, the cup and overhead, your hourly rate, card fees and the margin you want; the full cost, the price for your margin rounded up, and what a wholesale price and a test price leave fill in. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Where this stops working

The calculator prices one batch. Banana prices move, a hot pop-up leaves a cooler of cups to throw out, and a half pan for a party takes a different amount of everything.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack costs each cup from its recipe and from what each batch used.

Recipes by weight. Each cup is a recipe, with unit conversion from the case or sack to the gram.

True cost from the batch. Each batch takes ingredients at their real cost, from the deliveries they came from, so a price rise shows up in the next batch.

Price creep. A price-creep report per supplier shows which ingredient is quietly costing more.

Recipes, batches and true cost 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

How much should I charge for banana pudding?

Work out the full cost, custard, cream, bananas, wafers, your time, the cup and overhead, then divide by 1 minus your margin and fee rate; the example's $2.83 cup prices at $7.00 for a 55% margin.

How do you calculate the cost of banana pudding?

Add the batch's ingredients and divide by the cups it makes, then add your time, the cup and a share of overhead.

What is a good profit margin on cups?

Set your own target after fees; the example uses 55% on direct sales and accepts less on wholesale.

How much is a half pan of banana pudding?

The example's maker charges $65 for a half pan that serves 20; price it from its own batch with the calculator.