To price a candy or caramel apple, add up the apple, the stick, the coating and any toppings with an allowance for bruised apples and failed dips, then the bag or box and the minutes it takes to wash, stick, dip, decorate and bag it, and price for the margin you want after card fees. In the example below, a classic red candy apple costs $1.46 and sells for $3.50, a caramel apple costs $2.38 and sells for $6, and a boxed gourmet apple with chocolate and toppings costs $6.37 and sells for $16. The apple and coating are cheap; the decorating time and the box are what make a gourmet apple cost more. One thing that isn't about price: caramel apples with a stick in them are best kept refrigerated, for a reason found after an outbreak. Below is the cost of each kind, the price, wholesale, the stick and the fridge, and a free calculator.
The short version
- Cost the apple, stick, coating and toppings, plus about 8% for bruised apples and failed dips.
- Add the bag or box and your minutes at an hourly rate.
- Price = cost ÷ (1 − margin − card fees), rounded up.
- Gourmet apples: the toppings, the box and the decorating time set the price.
- Wholesale leaves less; price it from the cost, and agree who keeps them cold.
- Keep caramel apples with sticks refrigerated.
- TaroStack costs every batch from what the apples and caramel cost. More below.
What an apple costs
Brandywine Candy Apple Co., a made-up candy apple maker in Wilmington, Delaware, I use in these examples, buys Granny Smith apples by the case at about 50 cents each, and 90 cents for the large ones it uses for gourmet apples:
| An apple | Classic red candy | Caramel | Gourmet caramel, boxed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple | $0.50 | $0.50 | $0.90 |
| Candy or caramel coating | $0.20 | $0.70 | $0.70 |
| Chocolate drizzle and toppings | $1.20 | ||
| Waste, 8% of the above | $0.06 | $0.10 | $0.22 |
| Stick | $0.05 | $0.10 | $0.10 |
| Bag, or box and liner, with label | $0.15 | $0.15 | $1.25 |
| Time at $20 an hour | 1.5 min, $0.50 | 2.5 min, $0.83 | 6 min, $2.00 |
| Cost | $1.46 | $2.38 | $6.37 |
The candy coating is sugar, corn syrup, water and color, about 20 cents an apple; caramel costs more. The minutes are for a batch: washing off the wax so the coating sticks, putting in the sticks, cooking the candy or melting the caramel, dipping, setting and bagging. Gourmet apples add the drizzle, rolling in toppings and boxing, so they take more than twice as long as a plain caramel apple. Weigh how much caramel a batch really uses, divided by the apples, rather than guessing.
The price
| An apple | Cost | Price, 55% margin after 3% card fees | Left after fees |
|---|---|---|---|
| Classic red candy | $1.46 | $3.50 | $1.94 |
| Caramel | $2.38 | $6.00 | $3.44 |
| Gourmet caramel, boxed | $6.37 | $16.00 | $9.15 |
Each price is the cost divided by (1 − 0.55 − 0.03), rounded up to 50 cents, or a dollar for the gourmet apple. For each hour of dipping, on top of the wage, the classic apple leaves about $78, the caramel $83 and the gourmet $92, so gourmet apples pay for their minutes, as long as they sell before their date. How to work out what you earn an hour is in candy business profit margin, and how to price other candy in how to price homemade fudge.
Wholesale
A farm stand or a shop that sells a caramel apple for $6 needs to buy it at about $3.50, which leaves the maker $1.12. That can work for a batch dipped in one go and delivered in a case, and it puts the apples where people already shop in the fall. Agree before the first delivery who keeps them refrigerated and for how many days they're sold. How to set a wholesale price that holds up is in how to price baked goods for wholesale.
The stick and the fridge
Caramel and apples don't support Listeria on their own: apples are too acidic and caramel too dry. Yet a 2014 outbreak was linked to commercially produced, prepackaged caramel apples; 35 people were reported ill and 34 were hospitalized (CDC). Researchers then found that putting a stick into the apple lets juice reach the layer between apple and caramel, where Listeria grew fast at room temperature: within 3 days, apples with sticks showed far more growth than apples without, and refrigeration slowed it (mBio, 2015). So caramel apples with sticks are best kept refrigerated and sold within a few days, with a "keep refrigerated" label, and some makers sell the stick alongside rather than in the apple. Whether candy or caramel apples are allowed under your state's cottage food law varies; how those laws work is in how to start a cottage food business. This is general information, not legal or food safety advice.
Get the calculator
Download the candy apple pricing calculator. Type what an apple, a stick, the coating and any toppings cost, your waste allowance, the bag or box, the minutes an apple takes, your hourly rate, card fees, the margin you want, what to round up to, and a wholesale price. It works out the cost of an apple, its price, what's left, and what the wholesale price leaves. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Apples bought by the case at prices that change through the season, caramel made in batches, six toppings, a refrigerator shared with farm stand orders, and a rush from September to Halloween. A sheet can't say what an apple cost in this week's batch, how many cases to buy for Saturday, or which farm stand got apples from which batch.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack costs every batch from what the apples and caramel really cost.
Batches at what they used. Each apple is a recipe of the apple, coating, toppings, stick and bag, and the caramel is a sub-recipe of its own. Recording a batch takes them off stock from the lots used, at what you paid, and divides by the apples that came out, so a batch with more failed dips shows in its cost.
Lots and dates. Every batch goes into a lot with a sell-by date, the oldest are picked first, lots close to their date show in your alerts, and one report walks a lot of apples or caramel to every customer who got it.
And the season's orders. Farm stand and party orders are sales orders that show whether the apples to fill them are ready while you're still typing, the reorder list works in days of cover against each supplier's lead time, and margins are reported by product and by customer.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| What an apple cost this week | Last fall's number | Each batch, at what it used |
| Which batch did the farm stand get? | Unknown | The lot, on the order |
| Apples close to their date | Read the labels | Alerts by date |
| Cases of apples for Saturday | Guess and buy extra | Sales orders, checked against stock |
Recipes, batches, lots, recalls and margins by product and customer 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.