How to Price Beeswax Candles: Pillars, With a Calculator

To price a 3 by 4 inch beeswax pillar you add up its full cost first: the beeswax and wicks by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the box and label, and a share of overhead like rent and power. That's what one pillar 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 a 3 by 4 inch beeswax pillar that costs $15.20 to make, a 60% margin after 3% fees means $41.08, rounded up to $42.00. Beeswax is the cost, even when it's your own: a pound of clean wax could be sold for about $10, so a pillar holding more than a pound starts at over $11. Shops pay about half of retail, so the retail price has to leave room for it. In the example below, a Wisconsin beekeeper prices beeswax pillars from its own wax.

The short version

• Full cost = beeswax and wicks a pillar + your time + box 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.
• Value your own wax at what it would sell for.
• Use wicks sized for beeswax; it burns hotter than soy.
• Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
• TaroStack keeps beeswax and wicks counted and costs every batch. More below.

What goes into a pillar's cost

The apiary's honey margins are in honey business profit margin, and soy candles priced the same way in how to price candles.

An example: a beeswax pillar

Kettle Moraine Apiary, the made-up beekeeper in West Bend, Wisconsin, I use in these examples, renders its cappings wax and pours 12 pillars at a time:

At a 60% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $15.20 ÷ 0.37 = $41.08, so $42.00. At $42.00 a pillar, each leaves $25.54. It had been selling them at $38.00 at the farm stand, which leaves $21.66. A gift shop pays $22.00, which leaves $6.14, because the wax would sell for $10 a pound anyway. A candle maker's year is in candle business plan.

Get the calculator

Download the beeswax candle price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's supplies, amounts and costs, the pillars it makes, the hands-on minutes, the box 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 pillar. A season with less wax, a batch that cracked as it cooled, and tapers and votives that each use a different amount change what each candle really cost.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack keeps beeswax and wicks counted, and costs every batch.

Supplies in their units. Beeswax is counted by the pound and wicks by the each.

Designs as recipes. Each pillar is a recipe of its supplies, so a batch takes them off stock and is costed from what they cost, and good and rejected pieces are recorded.

Reordering. Supplies come up on a reorder list in days of cover, worked out from how fast they're used.

Recipes, units, costing and reorder lists 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 beeswax candles?

Work out the full cost, beeswax, wicks, pouring time, the box and overhead, then divide by 1 minus your margin and fee rate; the example's $15.20 pillar prices at $42.00 for a 60% margin.

How do you calculate the cost of beeswax candles?

Add the batch's supplies and divide by the pillars it makes, then add your time, the box and a share of overhead.

What is a good profit margin on pillars?

Set your own target after fees; the example uses 60%, because shops pay about half of retail.

Why are beeswax candles more expensive than soy?

Beeswax costs several times what soy wax does; in the example a pillar holds more than $11 of wax.