How to Price Homemade Dog Treats (With a Calculator)

To price homemade dog treats, work out the full cost of one bag: ingredients, the bag and label, your hands-on time at a real hourly rate, a share of overhead, and a share of what it costs each year to register the product in your state. Divide by 0.70 for a wholesale price that leaves you 30%, and by 0.60 again for the shelf price a pet shop would charge. Then check it against what similar treats sell for. In the example below, a bag of a dozen biscuits costs $4.57 made one batch at a time, which needs an $11.25 shelf price; made four batches at once, it costs $3.32 and works at $8. Below is the bag worked through, the rules that add cost, and a free calculator.

The short version

• Full cost per bag = ingredients + packaging + labor + overhead + registration and testing, divided by the bags it covers.
• Labor is usually the biggest line. Bigger batches cut it more than cheaper flour ever will.
• Wholesale = full cost ÷ 0.70. Shelf price = wholesale ÷ 0.60.
• Sell at your own table for the shelf price, not the wholesale one.
• Dog treats are commercial feed. Most states require registration or a license before you sell, even at a market.
• TaroStack keeps the cost under the price current and puts a lot code on every bag. More below.

Step 1: what a bag costs

A home pet treat baker, made up for this article, makes peanut butter pumpkin biscuits: 120 to a batch, sold in bags of 12. One batch:

Labor is more than half the cost of a single-batch bag. Mixing a quadruple batch takes barely longer than a single one, and the oven holds more trays; only the cutting and bagging grow. That's why doubling and doubling again cuts the cost by a quarter, where switching to cheaper flour would save pennies. The method for timing it is in how to compute labor cost.

The $300 is a placeholder. Registration fees, and what a lab charges to test a recipe for the label's guarantees, vary by state and lab, and you should put your own numbers in.

Step 2: from cost to price

If similar bags sell for about $9 where you'd sell, the single-batch bag can be sold at your own table, where you keep $4.43, but not through a shop: the shop would need $11.25 on the shelf. Made four batches at a time, the same bag wholesales at $4.75 and sits on the shelf at $8, under the going price. The recipe didn't change; the batch did. The same logic for people food is in how to price baked goods.

Step 3: the rules, which cost money too

Dog treats aren't people food, so a cottage food exemption for food you make at home doesn't cover them. They're animal food, and both the FDA and your state have a say.

The FDA requires all animal food, like human food, to be safe to eat, produced under sanitary conditions, free of harmful substances and truthfully labeled. Its label rules ask for the product's identity, the net quantity, the name and place of business of the manufacturer or distributor, and the ingredients from most to least by weight, and many states add their own rules based on AAFCO's model (FDA). AAFCO lists what a label carries under that model, including a guaranteed analysis of certain nutrients; treats are exempt from the nutritional adequacy statement (AAFCO).

Registration is a state matter. AAFCO's guidance says almost all states have registration or licensing requirements you must meet before products are offered for sale, including online, that treats are included, and that fees vary by state (AAFCO guidance). Selling or even giving away homemade treats at a farmers market counts as distribution, and shipping into a state after an online order counts as distributing there (AAFCO). So before your first market, call your state's feed control official. This is general information, not legal advice.

Get the calculator

Download the dog treat cost and price calculator. It has the bag worked through at both batch sizes, with your registration and testing spread across a year's bags, and the wholesale and shelf prices. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Full cost per bag  =ingredients per bag + packaging + labor per bag + overhead + yearly fees / bags a year
Wholesale          =ROUNDUP(full cost / 0.70 * 4, 0) / 4
Shelf price        =ROUNDUP(wholesale / 0.60 * 4, 0) / 4

Where this stops working

The calculator is right for the peanut butter you bought this month. Then it goes up, you add a sweet potato biscuit and a training-treat size, and three products in two bag sizes each need their own cost, their own registration and their own label. And if a jar of peanut butter turns out to be recalled, the question is which batches used it and which shops have those bags, which a calculator can't answer; what to do then is in the recall plan example.

How TaroStack does it

In TaroStack, the biscuit recipe is by weight, with the bag and label on it, and each batch you record takes the flour, peanut butter and pumpkin from their lots at the price you paid. So every batch has its real cost, divided by the bags that came out good, and margins per product are reported on that cost, so the price stays honest when peanut butter goes up. Each batch becomes a lot with its best-by date, and lot labels print with the lot code for the bag.

Pet shops are customers, with sales orders and delivery notes, and every delivery carries its lot. If an ingredient is recalled, one report shows which batches used it and which shops got them. TaroStack doesn't register products or write your guaranteed analysis; it keeps the records behind them.

Lots, expiry and recalls are on every plan, from $49 a month; recipes, batches and true cost are on Standard at $99. The first 30 days are free. 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 homemade dog treats?

Enough to cover the full cost of a bag, including your time and your state registration, and leave a margin: cost ÷ 0.70 for wholesale, and wholesale ÷ 0.60 for the shelf. Then compare with similar treats nearby; if you're too high, a bigger batch usually fixes it.

Do I need a license to sell homemade dog treats?

In most states, yes. Pet treats are commercial feed, and AAFCO says almost all states require product registration or a company license before you sell, including at farmers markets and online. Ask your state's feed control official.

What has to be on a dog treat label?

Under FDA rules, the product's name, net quantity, the manufacturer's or distributor's name and place of business, and ingredients from most to least by weight. Many states also require what AAFCO's model asks for, including a guaranteed analysis.

Are dog treats profitable to make at home?

They can be, if labor is priced in and batches are big enough. In the example, the same bag costs $4.57 made one batch at a time and $3.32 made four at once, which is the difference between a product a shop can stock and one it can't.