How to Price Bread: Loaves for a Shop and Wholesale

To price a loaf of bread you add up its full cost first: the flour, butter and yeast by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the bag and tie, and a share of overhead like rent and power. That's what one loaf 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 sandwich loaf that costs $3.32 to make, a 55% margin after 3% fees means $7.89, rounded up to $8.00. Flour is cheap; the hands-on time and the oven are most of a loaf's cost, which is why a bigger batch costs less a loaf. Wholesale to a grocer is a different price, set so it still covers the full cost with something left. In the example below, a Kansas wholesale bakery prices its sandwich loaf for its shop and a grocer.

The short version

• Full cost = ingredients a loaf + your time + bag, tie 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.
• Count your hands-on time for the batch, not for one loaf.
• Put the oven's gas and the rent into overhead per loaf.
• Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
• TaroStack costs each loaf from its recipe and what each batch used. More below.

What goes into a loaf's cost

How a bakery sets wholesale prices is in how to price baked goods for wholesale, and a sourdough loaf in how to price sourdough bread.

An example: a sandwich loaf

Flint Hills Bakery, the made-up wholesale bakery in Topeka, Kansas, I use in these examples, mixes 24 sandwich loaves at a time, 1.5 pounds of dough each:

At a 55% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $3.32 ÷ 0.42 = $7.89, so $8.00. At $8.00 a loaf, each leaves $4.44. It had been selling at $7.00, which leaves $3.47, and moved up. A grocer offered $4.75, which leaves $1.29 a loaf, and the bakery took it for 120 loaves a week, baked in the same oven loads. The year around the oven is in bakery business plan.

Get the calculator

Download the bread price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's ingredients, amounts and costs, the loaves it makes, the hands-on minutes, the bag 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 loaf on paper. Flour that rose 15% this year, butter that changes every month, and loaves that come out of the oven too dark to sell change what each one really cost.

How TaroStack does it

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

Recipes by weight. Each loaf 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 a loaf of homemade bread?

Work out the full cost, ingredients, mixing and shaping time, the bag and oven overhead, then divide by 1 minus your margin and fee rate; the example's $3.32 sandwich loaf prices at $8.00 for a 55% margin.

How do you calculate the cost of a loaf of homemade bread?

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

What is a good profit margin on loaves?

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

How much should I charge a grocery store for bread?

Enough to cover the full cost with something left; the example's $4.75 a loaf leaves $1.29.