To price a dozen quail eggs you add up its full cost first: the flock's feed by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the small carton and label, and a share of overhead like rent and power. That's what one dozen 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 dozen quail eggs that costs $1.87 to make, a 65% margin after 3% fees means $5.85, rounded up to $6.00. Quail eat little, so feed is a small part of a dozen's cost; the collecting, cleaning and cartoning of tiny eggs is the big one. Restaurants buy flats of 30 at a lower price per egg, set so it still covers the full cost with something left. In the example below, an Arkansas quail farm prices its eggs for markets and restaurants.
The short version
- Full cost = feed a dozen + your time + carton 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.
- Time the collecting and cartoning: tiny eggs take long.
- Price restaurant flats per dozen against the full cost.
- Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
- TaroStack keeps each day's eggs as a lot with its pack date, sold oldest first. More below.
What goes into a dozen's cost
| Part | How to count it |
|---|---|
| Feed | The batch's cost ÷ dozen a batch |
| Your time | Hands-on minutes for the batch ÷ dozen × your hourly rate |
| Carton and label | Per dozen |
| Overhead | Rent, power, tools, spread over the dozen you make |
| Fees | Card and market fees as a share of the price |
The farm's year is in quail farm business plan, and duck eggs priced the same way in how to price duck eggs.
An example: a dozen quail eggs
Ozark Ridge Quail, the made-up quail farm near Fayetteville, Arkansas, I use in these examples, gets about 210 dozen a week from 450 laying Coturnix quail:
| A week's feed for 450 quail | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Game bird feed for a week | 173 lb | $77.85 |
| A batch | $77.85 |
| A dozen | Cost |
|---|---|
| Feed, $77.85 ÷ 210 | $0.37 |
| Time, 600 minutes for the batch at $20 an hour ÷ 210 | $0.95 |
| Carton and label | $0.30 |
| Overhead | $0.25 |
| Full cost | $1.87 |
At a 65% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $1.87 ÷ 0.32 = $5.85, so $6.00. At $6.00 a dozen, each leaves $3.95. It had been asking $5.00, which leaves $2.98. Restaurants pay $11 for a flat of 30, $4.40 a dozen, which leaves $2.39 a dozen, for eggs they serve on toast and in ramen. Pickled quail eggs, the farm's jarred product at $10, are an acidified food made under a process, in ph testing for acidified foods.
Get the calculator
Download the quail egg price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's feed, amounts and costs, the dozen it makes, the hands-on minutes, the carton 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 dozen on paper. The flock lays less in short winter days, feed climbs, and cracked eggs and the ones the quail break come out of every week.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each day's eggs as a lot with its pack date, sold oldest first.
Each day a lot. A day's eggs go in as a lot with the date they were packed, so every carton's date comes from the day it was collected.
Oldest first. Orders take the oldest lots first by default, and a restaurant can be set to take only eggs with enough days left.
Feed in the cost. Feed bought by the bag is used by the pound, so the cost of a dozen follows the feed price.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| The pack date on a carton | Written by hand | From the day's lot |
| Which eggs go out first | Whatever's in front | First-expired-first-out |
| What a dozen costs this month | A guess | Cost from the feed price |
Lots, expiry and costing 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.