To price muffins, cost a whole batch, divide by the muffins it makes, add your time, the bag and a share of the oven and rent, and price for the margin you want after card fees. Price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − fees). In the example below, a batch of 24 blueberry muffins uses $11.19 of flour, butter, eggs, berries and liners, 47 cents a muffin, and 40 minutes of work adds 56 cents. With the bag and overhead, each muffin costs $1.32. At a 55% margin after 3% card fees, that's $3.15, rounded up to $3.25. A café paying $1.75 leaves 38 cents. Below is a batch's cost, the time, the price, wholesale, jumbo muffins, bake sales, and a free calculator.
The short version
- Cost a whole batch: flour, sugar, butter and oil, eggs, milk, leavening, fruit, and the liners.
- Divide by the muffins it makes, 24 standard muffins here.
- Time the hands-on work for the batch and divide by the muffins.
- Add the bag and a share of the oven, power and rent.
- Price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − card fees), rounded up to a quarter.
- Muffins are quick to make in big batches; small batches are where they cost the most.
- TaroStack costs every batch from what you paid for the butter and berries. More below.
What a batch costs
Lake City Muffin Co., a made-up bakery in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, I use in these examples, bakes blueberry muffins 24 to a batch:
| A batch of 24 | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 2 lb at $0.60 | $1.20 |
| Sugar | 1 lb at $0.80 | $0.80 |
| Butter and oil | 0.75 lb at $2.70 | $2.03 |
| Eggs | 4 at $0.30 | $1.20 |
| Milk | 2 cups | $0.60 |
| Baking powder, salt, vanilla | $0.40 | |
| Blueberries | 2 cups | $4.00 |
| Paper liners | 24 at $0.04 | $0.96 |
| Ingredients, a batch | $11.19 |
The berries are more than a third of the batch. A banana or chocolate chip muffin costs less, a streusel-topped one a little more; price flavors separately when they differ by more than a few cents.
The time, the bag and the overhead
The batch takes 40 minutes of hands-on work: mixing, filling the tins, baking, cooling and bagging. At $20 an hour, that's 56 cents a muffin.
| A muffin | Cost |
|---|---|
| Ingredients | $0.47 |
| Your time | $0.56 |
| Bag and overhead | $0.30 |
| Full cost | $1.32 |
How to put labor into a baked good's cost is in how to compute labor cost in baking.
The price
| Muffin | |
|---|---|
| Full cost | $1.32 |
| Price at a 55% margin after 3% card fees | $3.15 |
| Rounded up to a quarter | $3.25 |
| Left after the cost and fees | $1.83 |
| At $3.00 instead | $1.59 left |
| Half dozen box at $17 | $2.83 each, $1.43 left |
The same arithmetic for the rest of a bakery's menu is in how to price baked goods.
Wholesale to cafés
| Price a muffin | Left after cost and fees |
|---|---|
| $3.25, retail | $1.83 |
| $3.00 | $1.59 |
| $1.75, to a café | $0.38 |
A café that buys at $1.75 keeps the rest of its $3.50 or $4 price, and you keep 38 cents. A batch of 48 instead of 24 brings the time per muffin down, and a café standing order is what pays for the bigger batch. How to set wholesale prices is in how to price baked goods for wholesale.
Jumbo muffins and bake sales
Jumbo muffins use about twice the batter of a standard one in a bigger liner. Twelve jumbo muffins from the same batch cost 93 cents of ingredients each, $1.11 of time and 35 cents of bag and overhead, $2.39 in all, and $5.75 at the same margin. They sell well at cafés that want one muffin per customer, not a basket.
Bake sales don't pay the baker, so the price only has to cover the ingredients and the bag: 62 cents a muffin here. At $2 each, a dozen raises about $16.50 after the ingredients. Whether muffins can be baked at home for sale where you live is in how to start a cottage food business.
Get the calculator
Download the muffin pricing calculator. Type what goes into a batch, the muffins it makes, the hands-on minutes, the bag, overhead, your hourly rate, card fees, the margin you want, a wholesale price and a price to test; it works out the full cost of a muffin, the price for your margin rounded up to a quarter, and what each price leaves. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
The calculator uses the berry and butter prices you type in. Blueberries cost far more in January than in July, and a sheet doesn't follow them; with six flavors and three cafés, the costs drift away from the prices quietly.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack costs every batch from what you paid for the butter and berries.
Recipes costed from real prices. Each muffin is a recipe, so each batch takes the flour, butter and berries off stock and is costed from what they cost, and the cost updates when berries get dearer in winter.
Price rises spotted. The price-creep report shows each supplier's prices over time, and margins are reported by product and by customer, so the café's muffins show what they really earn.
What you can bake. "What could I make right now" says how many batches the berries and butter on hand allow.
| The job | Calculator | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| What a batch costs | Prices you type | Costed from what you paid |
| Berries dearer in winter | Noticed later | Price creep by supplier |
| What a café's muffins earn | Worked out by hand | Margins by customer |
| Enough berries for Saturday? | Check the freezer | What could I make right now |
Recipes, costing and price creep 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.