To price a 12-ounce jar of honey you add up its full cost first: the honey, counted at what a bucket would sell for in bulk by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the jar, lid and label, and a share of overhead like rent and power. That's what one jar 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 12-ounce jar of wildflower honey that costs $4.29 to make, a 55% margin after 3% fees means $10.21, rounded up to $10.25. Counting the honey at its bulk price shows whether jarring it pays better than selling the bucket. Wholesale to shops is a different price, set so it still covers the full cost with something left. In the example below, a Wisconsin beekeeper prices its 12-ounce jars for markets and shops.
The short version
- Full cost = honey a jar + your time + jar 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 the honey at what a bucket sells for in bulk.
- Comb honey and creamed honey take more time; price them on their own.
- Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
- TaroStack costs each jar from its recipe and what each batch used. More below.
What goes into a jar's cost
| Part | How to count it |
|---|---|
| Honey | The batch's cost ÷ jars a batch |
| Your time | Hands-on minutes for the batch ÷ jars × your hourly rate |
| Jar, lid and label | Per jar |
| Overhead | Rent, power, tools, spread over the jars you make |
| Fees | Card and market fees as a share of the price |
What a honey business looks like over a year is in honey business plan, and what the jar's label needs in how to label honey for sale.
An example: a 12-ounce jar of wildflower honey
Kettle Moraine Apiary, the made-up beekeeper in West Bend, Wisconsin, I use in these examples, jars a 60-pound bucket into 80 jars of 12 ounces:
| Honey | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Honey, at its bulk price | 60 lb | $195.00 |
| A batch | $195.00 |
| A jar | Cost |
|---|---|
| Honey, $195.00 ÷ 80 | $2.44 |
| Time, 120 minutes for the batch at $20 an hour ÷ 80 | $0.50 |
| Jar, lid and label | $1.10 |
| Overhead | $0.25 |
| Full cost | $4.29 |
At a 55% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $4.29 ÷ 0.42 = $10.21, so $10.25. It had been asking $9, which leaves $4.44; at $10.25 each jar leaves $5.65, so the market price went to $10.25. Three shops buy at $7.00, which leaves $2.50 a jar after full cost. A bucket sold in bulk brings $195; jarred, the same honey brings 80 jars and covers its own bottling time with something left. Which licenses the apiary needs is in honey business license.
Get the calculator
Download the honey price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's honey, amounts and costs, the jars it makes, the hands-on minutes, the jar and label 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 jar on paper. A dry summer that halves the harvest changes what a bucket is worth, and with it what each jar costs.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack costs each jar from its recipe and from what each batch used.
Recipes by weight. Each jar 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 jar costs this week | Last season's sheet | True cost from the batch |
| Which harvest is in the jar | Written on the bucket | Lots by harvest |
| 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.