To price a bag of freeze-dried candy you add up its full cost first: the candy and the power for a cycle by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the 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 3-ounce bag of freeze-dried taffy that costs $2.79 to make, a 55% margin after 3% fees means $6.63, rounded up to $6.75. The freeze dryer is the hidden cost: spread its price over the cycles it will run, and add the power each cycle uses. Wholesale to shops is a different price, set so it still covers the full cost with something left. In the example below, a Utah home maker prices its bags for markets and a gift shop.
The short version
- Full cost = ingredients 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.
- Put machine wear in overhead: its price over the cycles it will run.
- Count the power for each cycle as an ingredient.
- 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 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 a freeze-dried candy business looks like over a year is in freeze-dried candy business plan, and the license in license to sell candy.
An example: a 3-ounce bag of taffy
Frost Moon Treats, the made-up freeze-dried candy maker in Utah I use in these examples, fills 16 bags of about 3 ounces from one 24-hour cycle:
| Ingredient | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Candy, bought in bulk | 4 lb | $16.00 |
| Power for a 24-hour cycle | 1 | $3.00 |
| A batch | $19.00 |
| A bag | Cost |
|---|---|
| Ingredients, $19.00 ÷ 16 | $1.19 |
| Time, 45 minutes for the batch at $20 an hour ÷ 16 | $0.94 |
| Bag and label | $0.35 |
| Overhead | $0.31 |
| Full cost | $2.79 |
At a 55% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $2.79 ÷ 0.42 = $6.63, so $6.75. At $6.75 a bag, each leaves $3.76. It had been asking $6, which leaves $3.04, and moved to $6.75. A gift shop asked for bags at $4.00, which leaves $1.09 each, and takes 48 a month. The overhead includes the $3,500 freeze dryer spread over 2,000 cycles, $1.75 a cycle, about 11 cents a bag. How a price becomes a margin is in what is a good profit margin for a food product.
Get the calculator
Download the freeze-dried 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 a bag on paper. A cycle that comes out chewy and has to run again doubles its power and time, and the bags on the shelf cost more than the sheet says.
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 |
| Cycles that run twice | Not counted | Waste with a reason |
| 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.