How to Price Peanut Butter: A 12-Ounce Jar, a Calculator

To price a 12-ounce jar of peanut butter you add up its full cost first: the peanuts and salt 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 that costs $3.67 to make, a 55% margin after 3% fees means $8.73, rounded up to $9.00. The peanuts are the biggest cost; the roaster, mill and kitchen come next, then the jar and label. A grocer pays less and marks it up on its shelf. In the example below, an Arkansas nut butter maker prices its jars for direct sales and grocers.

The short version

• Full cost = peanuts and salt a jar + your time + jar, lid 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.
• Price from the peanuts after roasting and grinding loss.
• Count the roaster, mill and kitchen in the overhead.
• 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

The business's year is in nut butter business plan, and the run itself in how to make peanut butter in bulk.

An example: a jar of peanut butter

Red Oak Nut Butters, the made-up nut butter maker in Little Rock, Arkansas, I use in these examples, roasts and grinds about 600 12-ounce jars of peanut butter in a day:

At a 55% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $3.67 ÷ 0.42 = $8.73, so $9.00. At $9.00 a jar, each leaves $5.07. The market had said $8.00, which leaves $4.10. Grocers at $5.50 leave $1.67 a jar, and take about 2,500 jars a month. When a co-packer would grind for less is in nut butter co-packer.

Get the calculator

Download the peanut butter price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's ingredients, amounts and costs, the jars it makes, the hands-on minutes, the jar 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 day. Peanut prices move by the harvest, a roast that runs long loses more weight, and honey or chocolate jars cost differently.

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.

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.

Questions people also ask

How much should I charge for a jar of peanut butter?

Work out the full cost, peanuts, salt, roasting and grinding time, the jar and label, and overhead, then divide by 1 minus your margin and fee rate; the example's $3.67 jar prices at $9.00 for a 55% margin.

How do you calculate the cost of a jar of peanut butter?

Add the batch's ingredients and divide by the jars it makes, then add your time, the jar and a share of overhead.

What is a good profit margin on jars?

Set your own target after fees; the example uses 55% on direct sales and accepts less on wholesale.

How much does it cost to make a jar of peanut butter?

In the example, $3.67 for 12 ounces, with the peanuts about $1.37 of it.