To price a 6-ounce bag of chocolate bark you add up its full cost first: the chocolate, nuts and fruit by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the bag, tie and label, and a share of overhead like rent and power. That's what one bag 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 6-ounce bag of chocolate bark that costs $4.91 to make, a 55% margin after 3% fees means $11.70, rounded up to $11.75. Chocolate is most of the cost, so good chocolate bought by the 10-pound block instead of the bar changes the price more than anything. In Michigan, where the example makes it, cottage food can't be sold to shops at all, so there's no wholesale price to set. In the example below, a Michigan home candy maker prices chocolate bark for a holiday market.
The short version
- Full cost = ingredients a bag + 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.
- Temper the chocolate and count the time: it's the slow part.
- Check whether your state's cottage food law allows sales to shops before you quote one.
- Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
- TaroStack costs each bag from its recipe and what each batch used. More below.
What goes into a bag's cost
| Part | How to count it |
|---|---|
| Ingredients | The batch's cost ÷ bags a batch |
| Your time | Hands-on minutes for the batch ÷ bags × your hourly rate |
| Bag, tie and label | Per bag |
| Overhead | Rent, power, tools, spread over the bags you make |
| Fees | Card and market fees as a share of the price |
What candy a home kitchen can sell is in can you sell candy from home, and margins across candies in candy business profit margin.
An example: a 6-ounce bag of bark
Mitten Sweets, the made-up home candy maker in Traverse City, Michigan, I use in these examples, makes cherry almond bark in batches of 16 bags:
| A batch of 16 bags | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Dark chocolate | 5 lb | $30.00 |
| Almonds | 1 lb | $5.50 |
| Dried cherries | 1 lb | $6.00 |
| Flaky sea salt | 0.1 lb | $0.10 |
| A batch | $41.60 |
| A bag | Cost |
|---|---|
| Ingredients, $41.60 ÷ 16 | $2.60 |
| Time, 75 minutes for the batch at $20 an hour ÷ 16 | $1.56 |
| Bag, tie and label | $0.45 |
| Overhead | $0.30 |
| Full cost | $4.91 |
At a 55% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $4.91 ÷ 0.42 = $11.70, so $11.75. At $11.75 a bag, each leaves $6.48. It had been selling at $10.00, which leaves $4.79, and moved to $11.75 for the holiday market, where the bags sold out anyway. A shop asked to stock it, and was told Michigan's cottage food law doesn't allow it. The rules the kitchen works under are in michigan cottage food law.
Get the calculator
Download the candy price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's ingredients, amounts and costs, the bags 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 bag on paper. Chocolate that rose a dollar a pound, a batch that bloomed and had to be remelted, and five kinds of candy at a market change what each bag really cost.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack costs each bag from its recipe and from what each batch used.
Recipes by weight. Each bag 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.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| What a bag costs this week | Last season's sheet | True cost from the batch |
| Bark that bloomed and was remelted | Not counted | Good and rejected on each batch |
| An ingredient creeping up | Noticed at tax time | A price-creep report |
| Whether wholesale still pays | A guess | Margins on real cost |
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.