To price a pound of pulled pork you add up its full cost first: the pork butts, rub and wood by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the paper and tray, and a share of overhead like rent and power. That's what one pound 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 pound of pulled pork that costs $7.31 to make, a 50% margin after 3% fees means $15.56, rounded up to $16.00. A bone-in butt loses about half its weight to the bone, fat and twelve hours of smoke, so 72 pounds bought gives about 36 pounds to sell, and that loss doubles the meat's cost a pound. Catering by the pound is a different price, set so it still covers the full cost with something left. In the example below, a Lubbock smokehouse prices pulled pork for its counter and catering.
The short version
- Full cost = pork, rub and wood a pound + your time + paper and tray + 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 pounds you pull, not the pounds you buy.
- Weigh a few butts before and after to know your yield.
- Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
- TaroStack costs each pound of pulled pork from its recipe and what each batch used. More below.
What goes into a pound's cost
| Part | How to count it |
|---|---|
| Pork, rub and wood | The batch's cost ÷ pounds a batch |
| Your time | Hands-on minutes for the batch ÷ pounds × your hourly rate |
| Paper and tray | Per pound |
| Overhead | Rent, power, tools, spread over the pounds you make |
| Fees | Card and market fees as a share of the price |
The restaurant's year is in bbq business plan, and its brisket, priced the same way, in how to price brisket.
An example: a pound of pulled pork
Caprock Smokehouse, the made-up barbecue restaurant in Lubbock, Texas, I use in these examples, smokes eight 9-pound bone-in pork butts at a time and pulls about 36 pounds from them:
| Eight pork butts | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Bone-in pork butts, 9 lb each | 72 lb | $158.40 |
| Rub and post oak | $14.40 | |
| A batch | $172.80 |
| A pound | Cost |
|---|---|
| Pork, rub and wood, $172.80 ÷ 36 | $4.80 |
| Time, 120 minutes for the batch at $20 an hour ÷ 36 | $1.11 |
| Paper and tray | $0.20 |
| Overhead | $1.20 |
| Full cost | $7.31 |
At a 50% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $7.31 ÷ 0.47 = $15.56, so $16.00. At $16.00 a pound, each leaves $8.21. The menu had said $14.00, which leaves $6.27. Catering by the pound at $13.00 leaves $5.30, cooked in the same pits on a weekday. Catering a whole event is in bbq catering business plan.
Get the calculator
Download the pulled pork price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's ingredients, amounts and costs, the pounds it makes, the hands-on minutes, the paper 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 yield. Butts that carry more fat, a smoker that runs hot, and pork left in the warmer at close change what each pound sold really cost.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack costs each pound of pulled pork from its recipe and from what each batch used.
Recipes by weight. Each pound of pulled pork 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 pound of pulled pork costs this week | Last season's sheet | True cost from the batch |
| Pork left at close | Not counted | Waste by reason |
| 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.