How to Price Chocolate: Full Cost, Margin, a Calculator

To price a 2-ounce chocolate bar you add up its full cost first: the couverture and inclusions by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the foil and wrapper, and a share of overhead like rent and power. That's what one bar 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 2-ounce bar with sea salt and almonds that costs $2.19 to make, a 60% margin after 3% fees means $5.92, rounded up to $6.00. Couverture is the biggest cost, and its price follows cocoa's. Wholesale to shops is a different price, set so it still covers the full cost with something left. In the example below, an Idaho chocolate maker prices its bars for its shop and for gift stores.

The short version

• Full cost = ingredients a bar + your time + foil and wrapper + 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 couverture by the bar; 56 grams is 67 cents at $12 a kilo.
• Price the wrapper honestly; foil and a printed sleeve add up.
• Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
• TaroStack costs each bar from its recipe and what each batch used. More below.

What goes into a bar's cost

What a chocolate business looks like over a year is in chocolate business plan, and margins by channel in chocolate business profit margin.

An example: a 2-ounce bar

Sawtooth Chocolate Co., the made-up chocolate maker in Boise, Idaho, I use in these examples, makes 600 two-ounce bars on a shared kitchen day:

At a 60% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $2.19 ÷ 0.37 = $5.92, so $6.00. At $6.00 a bar, each leaves $3.63. It sells online for $7, which leaves $4.60. Gift stores pay $3.75, which leaves $1.45 a bar after full cost. Couverture is 67 cents of the $2.19; when its price rose 10% in the spring, every bar cost about 7 cents more. When a co-packer starts to make sense is in chocolate co-packer.

Get the calculator

Download the chocolate price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's ingredients, amounts and costs, the bars it makes, the hands-on minutes, the wrapper 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 bar on paper. Couverture bought at three prices over a year, and bars lost to bloom, change what each bar really cost.

How TaroStack does it

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

Recipes by weight. Each bar 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 chocolate bar?

Work out the full cost, couverture, inclusions, time, the wrapper and overhead, then divide by 1 minus your margin and fee rate; the example's $2.19 2-ounce bar prices at $6.00 for a 60% margin.

How do you calculate the cost of a chocolate bar?

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

What is a good profit margin on bars?

Set your own target after fees; the example uses 60% on direct sales and accepts less on wholesale.

How much should I sell chocolate bars to stores for?

Enough to cover the full cost with something left; the example's $3.75 wholesale price leaves $1.45 a bar.