To price a dozen wrapped caramels you add up its full cost first: the cream, butter and sugar by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the wax papers, bag and tie, and a share of overhead like rent and power. That's what one dozen 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 dozen wrapped caramels that costs $7.58 to make, a 45% margin after 3% fees means $14.58, rounded up to $15.00. Wrapping each caramel by hand, about 20 seconds apiece, takes longer than cooking the batch, so time costs more than the ingredients. A big order of ten bags for a wedding is priced lower a bag. In the example below, a Washington cottage food maker prices its caramels for the market and a wedding order.
The short version
- Full cost = cream, butter and sugar a dozen + your time + wax papers, bag and tie + overhead.
- Price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − fee rate).
- Count your time at a real hourly rate, even if you don't pay yourself yet.
- Time the wrapping; it takes longer than the cooking.
- Under a cottage food permit, sell in person, as Washington's requires.
- Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
- TaroStack costs each dozen caramels from its recipe and what each batch used. More below.
What goes into a dozen's cost
| Part | How to count it |
|---|---|
| Cream, butter and sugar | The batch's cost ÷ dozens a batch |
| Your time | Hands-on minutes for the batch ÷ dozens × your hourly rate |
| Wax papers, bag and tie | Per dozen |
| Overhead | Rent, power, tools, spread over the dozens you make |
| Fees | Card and market fees as a share of the price |
How long they keep is in caramels shelf life, and wrappers and bags in how to package caramels for sale.
An example: a dozen caramels
Columbia Orchard Kitchen, the made-up cottage food maker in Wenatchee, Washington, I use in these examples, cooks 120 caramels in a batch and wraps them by the dozen:
| A batch of 120 caramels | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Heavy cream | 2 qt | $10.00 |
| Butter | 2 lb | $9.00 |
| Sugar and corn syrup | $6.00 | |
| Vanilla and sea salt | $3.00 | |
| A batch | $28.00 |
| A dozen | Cost |
|---|---|
| Cream, butter and sugar, $28.00 ÷ 10 | $2.80 |
| Time, 120 minutes for the batch at $20 an hour ÷ 10 | $4.00 |
| Wax papers, bag and tie | $0.28 |
| Overhead | $0.50 |
| Full cost | $7.58 |
At a 45% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $7.58 ÷ 0.52 = $14.58, so $15.00. At $15.00 a dozen, each leaves $6.97. The market table had said $12.00, which leaves $4.06. A wedding order of ten bags at $13.00 a bag leaves $5.03 a bag, picked up in person, as the permit requires. What the permit allows, and the label it asks for, is in washington cottage food laws.
Get the calculator
Download the caramel price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's ingredients, amounts and costs, the dozens 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 batch. Cream and butter prices move, a batch cooked a degree too far comes out hard, and a humid day slows the wrapping.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack costs each dozen caramels from its recipe and from what each batch used.
Recipes by weight. Each dozen caramels 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 dozen caramels costs this week | Last season's sheet | True cost from the batch |
| Bags by batch date | Tape on the box | Lots with dates, oldest first |
| 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.