To price rice krispie treats, cost a whole pan, the cereal, marshmallows, butter, candy melts and sprinkles, and divide by the treats you cut from it; add your minutes, the bag and a share of the kitchen; then price for your margin after card fees: price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − fees). A plain square and a dipped, decorated treat are different products: the dip doubles the ingredients and the decorating doubles the time. In the example below, a dipped treat costs $2.09 to make and sells for $5, a plain square costs $1.18 and sells for $3, and a custom themed dozen sells for $84. Below is the pan, the minutes, the prices, café wholesale, what moves the cost, and a free calculator.
The short version
- Cost a pan: cereal, marshmallows, butter, flavorings, candy melts and sprinkles.
- Divide by the treats you cut; trim the edges into samples, not into the count.
- Add your minutes: melting, mixing, pressing, cutting, dipping, decorating and bagging.
- Add the bag and label and a share of the kitchen.
- Price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − fees), rounded up.
- Price custom treats by the minute of decorating, not by the treat.
- TaroStack costs every batch from what you paid, with its minutes. More below.
The pan
Bluebird Cake Pops, a made-up cake pop maker in Cheyenne, Wyoming, I use in these examples, adds dipped rice krispie treats to its cake pops, 24 large treats from a half-sheet pan:
| Ingredient | Amount | Cost a unit | Cost a pan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crisp rice cereal | 1.5 lb | $3.20 | $4.80 |
| Marshmallows | 2.5 lb | $2.40 | $6.00 |
| Butter | 0.5 lb | $4.50 | $2.25 |
| Vanilla and salt | $0.30 | ||
| Candy melts for dipping | 1.5 lb | $6.00 | $9.00 |
| Sprinkles | $1.20 | ||
| A pan of 24 | $23.55 |
That's 98 cents a treat, and the candy melts are 38 cents of it. Without the dip and sprinkles, a plain square's ingredients are 56 cents.
The minutes and the kitchen
| For each dipped treat | Cost |
|---|---|
| Ingredients | $0.98 |
| Heat-sealed bag and label | $0.18 |
| Labor: 60 minutes a pan at $20 an hour | $0.83 |
| The kitchen's rent, power and tools | $0.10 |
| Full cost | $2.09 |
A plain pan takes about 25 minutes; dipping half of each treat, letting it set and adding sprinkles takes the other 35. At a 55% margin after 3% card fees: $2.09 ÷ (1 − 0.55 − 0.03) = $4.99, rounded up to $5.00, which leaves $2.76 a treat. How the same sum works for cake pops is in how to price cake pops.
Prices for each kind
| Treat | Price | Cost, with fees | Left | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain square, bagged | $3.00 | $1.27 | $1.73 | 57.6% |
| Dipped and sprinkled | $5.00 | $2.24 | $2.76 | 55.1% |
| Custom themed dozen, boxed | $84.00 | $53.66 | $30.35 | 36.1% |
| Dipped, to a coffee shop | $3.00 | $2.18 | $0.82 | 27.2% |
A custom themed treat, piped to match a party, takes about six more minutes each, $2 of labor, and goes out in a $2 box of twelve. At $7 a treat, $84 a dozen, it leaves $30.35, less of the price than a plain dipped treat leaves, because the minutes cost more than the candy melts. A maker who charges custom treats like dipped ones loses most of their margin on every order; price the decorating minutes, and quote a dozen at the time it takes. The coffee shop treat leaves 82 cents, because the shop sells it at $5 and needs about 40% of that. How wholesale prices are built is in how to price baked goods for wholesale.
What moves the cost
- The dip. Dipping one end instead of the bottom and sides halves the candy melts.
- Treat size. Cutting a pan into 30 instead of 24 lowers the ingredients and minutes in each by a fifth, and the price should follow.
- Decorating minutes. Each minute at $20 an hour is 33 cents; a ten-minute custom treat is $3.33 of labor before the cereal.
- Batching. Three pans made together share the melting, the pressing and the cleanup.
Get the calculator
Download the rice krispie treat pricing calculator. Type each ingredient's amount and price for a pan, how many treats it makes, the hands-on minutes, your hourly rate, the bag, the kitchen's share, your card fees and the margin you want. The full cost, the price for your margin, rounded up to the nearest 25 cents, and what's left at that price, at a wholesale price and at a price you want to test all fill in. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Cake pops, treats and custom orders from the same candy melts and sprinkles, each order with its own colors and minutes, and a coffee shop's weekly order on top. A one-pan calculator can't say whether there are enough pink melts for Saturday's three party orders, or what a custom dozen really took last week.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack costs every batch from what you paid, with its minutes.
Treats as recipes. A plain treat base is a recipe of its own, used inside the dipped treat and the custom one, so a change in the price of marshmallows moves every treat's cost.
Each batch with its minutes. A batch takes its cereal, marshmallows and melts off stock at what they cost, with its labor minutes, so a custom order's real time is on the record. "What could I make right now" says how many treats the melts on the shelf allow.
Margins by product and customer. Margins are reported by product and by customer, so the coffee shop's treats and the party orders each show what they leave. The cake pop side of the business is in cake pop business plan.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| What a dipped treat costs now | Last year's number | Each batch, at what it used |
| Pink melts for Saturday | Check the cupboard | What could I make right now |
| Minutes on a custom dozen | A guess | Labor minutes on the batch |
| Does the coffee shop pay? | A feeling | Margins by customer |
Recipes, batches and margin reports 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.