To price a 4-ounce jar of body butter you add up its full cost first: the shea, cocoa butter, oils and essential oil by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the jar, lid and label, and a share of overhead like rent and power. That's what one jar 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 4-ounce jar of whipped body butter that costs $3.77 to make, a 65% margin after 3% fees means $11.77, rounded up to $12.00. Butters and carrier oils are the cost, and the jar and label add almost a dollar. Wholesale to shops is a different price, set so it still covers the full cost with something left. In the example below, an Oregon skincare maker prices its body butter for markets and a spa.
The short version
- Full cost = supplies a jar + your time + jar, 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.
- Weigh butters and oils by the batch; jojoba costs more than everything else.
- Cosmetics need their own label rules; budget the label properly.
- Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
- TaroStack keeps butters, oils and jars counted and costs every batch. More below.
What goes into a jar's cost
| Part | How to count it |
|---|---|
| Supplies | The batch's cost ÷ jars a batch |
| Your time | Hands-on minutes for the batch ÷ jars × your hourly rate |
| Jar, lid and label | Per jar |
| Overhead | Rent, power, tools, spread over the jars you make |
| Fees | Card and market fees as a share of the price |
What a skincare business looks like over a year is in skincare business plan, and what the jar's label needs in cosmetic labeling requirements.
An example: a 4-ounce jar of whipped body butter
Willamette Botanicals, a made-up skincare maker in Eugene, Oregon, whips 24 four-ounce jars of body butter a batch:
| Supply | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Shea butter | 2 lb | $10.00 |
| Cocoa butter | 1 lb | $8.00 |
| Coconut oil | 1 lb | $2.50 |
| Jojoba oil | 0.5 lb | $6.00 |
| Essential oil | 2 oz | $6.00 |
| Vitamin E | $1.50 | |
| A batch | $34.00 |
| A jar | Cost |
|---|---|
| Supplies, $34.00 ÷ 24 | $1.42 |
| Time, 90 minutes for the batch at $20 an hour ÷ 24 | $1.25 |
| Jar, lid and label | $0.85 |
| Overhead | $0.25 |
| Full cost | $3.77 |
At a 65% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $3.77 ÷ 0.32 = $11.77, so $12.00. At $12.00 a jar, each leaves $7.87. It had been asking $14, which leaves $9.81, and kept $14 at markets. A spa asked for jars at $7.00, which leaves $3.02 each, and takes two dozen a month. The jojoba is $6 of the $34.00 batch and the cocoa butter $8. Whether a small maker has to register products is in MoCRA small business.
Get the calculator
Download the body butter price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's supplies, amounts and costs, the jars it makes, the hands-on minutes, the jar and label 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 a jar on paper. Shea bought in a new lot at a new price, and a batch that grains in the heat, change what the jars really cost.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps butters, oils and jars counted, and costs every batch.
Supplies in their units. Shea bought by the 25-pound box is used by the ounce, and jars bought by the case are counted by the each.
Designs as recipes. Each jar 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.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Supplies on hand | Count the shelf | Stock in its own units |
| What a batch cost | Prices you type | Costed from what you paid |
| Which shea lot went in | Not recorded | Batches by lot |
| When to reorder | When it's low | Reorder list in days of cover |
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.