To price a macaron you add up its full cost first: the almond flour, sugar, egg whites and filling by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, its share of the box, and a share of overhead like rent and power. That's what one macaron 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 filled macaron that costs $1.78 to make, a 40% margin after 3% fees means $3.12, rounded up to $3.25. Macarons are cheap to make in ingredients and expensive in time: five hours of aging whites, piping, resting, baking, filling and matching shells for 96, and a tray of cracked or hollow shells is time lost. That's why a café's wholesale price needs checking before you agree to it. In the example below, a home macaron baker in Raleigh works out what a café price leaves.
The short version
- Full cost = ingredients a macaron + your time + box, a share + overhead.
- Price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − fee rate).
- Count your time at a real hourly rate, even if you don't pay yourself yet.
- Count the hours, not only the almond flour; time is most of the cost.
- Add the shells that crack to the cost of the ones that sell.
- Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
- TaroStack costs each macaron from its recipe and what each batch used. More below.
What goes into a macaron's cost
| Part | How to count it |
|---|---|
| Ingredients | The batch's cost ÷ macarons a batch |
| Your time | Hands-on minutes for the batch ÷ macarons × your hourly rate |
| Box, a share | Per macaron |
| Overhead | Rent, power, tools, spread over the macarons you make |
| Fees | Card and market fees as a share of the price |
What a macaron business's year looks like is in macaron business plan, and pricing other cookies in how to price cookies.
An example: a macaron for a café
Oak City Macarons, a made-up home baker in Raleigh, North Carolina, makes 96 filled macarons a batch, about 10% more shells than it needs to allow for cracks:
| Ingredient | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Almond flour | 2.2 lb | $19.80 |
| Powdered sugar | 2 lb | $2.40 |
| Sugar | 1.5 lb | $1.20 |
| Egg whites | 16 | $4.80 |
| Butter for the filling | 2 lb | $9.00 |
| Flavors and colors | $3.00 | |
| A batch | $40.20 |
| A macaron | Cost |
|---|---|
| Ingredients, $40.20 ÷ 96 | $0.42 |
| Time, 300 minutes for the batch at $20 an hour ÷ 96 | $1.04 |
| Box, a share | $0.20 |
| Overhead | $0.12 |
| Full cost | $1.78 |
At a 40% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $1.78 ÷ 0.57 = $3.12, so $3.25. It had been charging $2.75 a macaron at markets, which leaves $0.89; at $3.25 each leaves $1.37. A café asked for macarons at $1.75, which leaves −$0.08 a macaron after full cost, less than nothing. The baker offered $2.25 for orders of four dozen or more, which leaves $0.40, and the café agreed to try it. Time is $1.04 of the $1.78, so a faster piping day is worth more than cheaper almond flour. How to count your hours in the cost is in how to compute labor cost in baking.
Get the calculator
Download the macaron price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's ingredients, amounts and costs, the macarons it makes, the hands-on minutes, the box 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 macaron on paper. A humid week with a third of the shells cracking, or almond flour bought at a new price, changes the real cost of the boxes going out.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack costs each macaron from its recipe and from what each batch used.
Recipes by weight. Each macaron 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 macaron costs this week | Last season's sheet | True cost from the batch |
| Shells that crack | Not counted | Good and rejected on each batch |
| 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.