To price a bar of goat milk soap you add up its full cost first: the goat milk, oils and lye by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the wrap and label, 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 4.5-ounce bar of goat milk soap that costs $3.17 to make, a 55% margin after 3% fees means $7.54, rounded up to $7.75. The oils are most of the materials; the goat milk is valued at what the goats' feed costs per pound, and the milking itself is a fixed cost of the farm. A shop's price is a different number, set so it still covers the full cost with something left. In the example below, a Tennessee goat farm prices its soap for markets and shops.
The short version
- Full cost = milk, oils and lye a bar + your time + wrap 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.
- Value your own goat milk at what it costs you, not at nothing.
- The cure takes weeks: price from the cured bar, not the fresh one.
- Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
- TaroStack keeps oils, lye and goat milk counted and costs every batch. More below.
What goes into a bar's cost
| Part | How to count it |
|---|---|
| Milk, oils and lye | The batch's cost ÷ bars a batch |
| Your time | Hands-on minutes for the batch ÷ bars × your hourly rate |
| Wrap and label | Per bar |
| Overhead | Rent, power, tools, spread over the bars you make |
| Fees | Card and market fees as a share of the price |
The farm's year is in goat milk soap business plan, and plain soap priced the same way in how to price soap.
An example: a 4.5-ounce bar
Sequatchie Valley Goat Soap, the made-up goat farm and soap maker near Dunlap, Tennessee, I use in these examples, makes 24 bars at a time with milk from its two Nubian does, frozen and used in place of water:
| A batch of 24 bars | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Olive oil | 3.5 lb | $8.75 |
| Coconut oil | 2.2 lb | $3.96 |
| Shea butter | 1 lb | $4.50 |
| Castor oil | 0.3 lb | $0.90 |
| Lye | 0.99 lb | $1.98 |
| Goat milk, frozen | 1.86 lb | $2.79 |
| Fragrance oil | 0.15 lb | $2.70 |
| A batch | $25.58 |
| A bar | Cost |
|---|---|
| Milk, oils and lye, $25.58 ÷ 24 | $1.07 |
| Time, 90 minutes for the batch at $20 an hour ÷ 24 | $1.25 |
| Wrap and label | $0.45 |
| Overhead | $0.40 |
| Full cost | $3.17 |
At a 55% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $3.17 ÷ 0.42 = $7.54, so $7.75. At $7.75 a bar, each leaves $4.35. It sells at markets for $8.00, which leaves $4.59. Shops pay $4.50, which leaves $1.20 a bar, thin, so shops get the plain bars and the market gets the scented ones. Why goat milk soap is still regulated as soap, not a cosmetic, is in soap business license.
Get the calculator
Download the goat milk soap price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's oils, amounts and costs, the bars it makes, the hands-on minutes, the wrap 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 bar on paper. The does milk less in late fall, olive oil jumps a dollar a pound, and a batch that seized in the mold costs the rest.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps oils, lye and goat milk counted, and costs every batch.
Supplies in their units. Oils bought by the jug are used by the pound, and frozen goat milk is counted by the pound in the freezer.
Designs as recipes. Each bar is a recipe of its supplies, so a batch takes them off stock and is costed from what they cost, and good and rejected pieces are recorded.
Reordering. Supplies come up on a reorder list in days of cover, worked out from how fast they're used.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Supplies on hand | Count the shelf | Stock in its own units |
| What a batch cost | Prices you type | Costed from what you paid |
| Batches that seized | Not counted | Good and rejected on each batch |
| When to reorder | When it's low | Reorder list in days of cover |
Recipes, units, costing and reorder lists 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.