How to Price Dumplings: Frozen Bags, With a Calculator

To price a frozen bag of 24 dumplings you add up its full cost first: the wrappers and filling by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the freezer bag 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 bag of 24 vegetable dumplings that costs $6.52 to make, a 55% margin after 3% fees means $15.52, rounded up to $16.00. Folding takes 15 seconds a dumpling, six minutes a bag, so labor costs about two-thirds as much as the wrappers and filling. An Asian grocer pays less and marks it up in its freezer. In the example below, a Massachusetts dumpling maker prices its frozen bags for the market and a grocer.

The short version

• Full cost = wrappers and filling a bag + your time + bag 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.
• Time the folding: it's close to the ingredients in cost.
• Count the kitchen's freezer shelf in the overhead.
• Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
• TaroStack costs each bag of dumplings from its recipe and what each batch used. More below.

What goes into a bag's cost

The business's year is in dumpling business plan, and what a bag costs at a bulk run in how to make dumplings in bulk.

An example: a bag of dumplings

Wollaston Dumpling Co., the made-up dumpling maker in Quincy, Massachusetts, I use in these examples, folds 1,200 vegetable and tofu dumplings in a session and freezes them in bags of 24:

At a 55% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $6.52 ÷ 0.42 = $15.52, so $16.00. At $16.00 a bag, each leaves $9.00. The market freezer had said $14.00, which leaves $7.06. The grocers' $10.00 leaves $3.18 a bag, and they take 30 bags every two weeks. How long the bags keep frozen is in dumplings shelf life.

Get the calculator

Download the dumpling 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 session. Cabbage prices move, a new folder is slower, and dumplings that tear in the freezer change what each bag really cost.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack costs each bag of dumplings from its recipe and from what each batch used.

Recipes by weight. Each bag of dumplings 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 bag of dumplings?

Work out the full cost, wrappers, filling, folding time, the bag and label, and kitchen and freezer overhead, then divide by 1 minus your margin and fee rate; the example's $6.52 bag prices at $16.00 for a 55% margin.

How do you calculate the cost of a bag of dumplings?

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

What is a good profit margin on bags?

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

How much do grocery stores pay for frozen dumplings?

In the example, $10.00 for a bag of 24, which leaves the maker $3.18.