To price a pound of smoked andouille you add up its full cost first: the pork, spices, casings and wood by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the vacuum bag and label, 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 smoked andouille that costs $6.67 to make, a 40% margin after 3% fees means $11.70, rounded up to $12.00. Smoking takes about a sixth of the weight, so 50 pounds of pork butt gives about 42 pounds of andouille to sell, and that loss belongs in every pound's price. A 10-pound order for a boil or a wedding is priced lower a pound. In the example below, a Louisiana smokehouse prices its andouille for the counter and bulk orders.
The short version
- Full cost = pork, spices, casings and wood a pound + your time + vacuum bag 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 pounds after smoking, not the pounds of pork bought.
- Selling to other stores takes USDA inspection; a shop's own counter sells under the retail exemption.
- Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
- TaroStack costs each pound of sausage from its recipe and what each batch used. More below.
What goes into a pound's cost
| Part | How to count it |
|---|---|
| Pork, spices, casings and wood | The batch's cost ÷ pounds a batch |
| Your time | Hands-on minutes for the batch ÷ pounds × your hourly rate |
| Vacuum bag and label | Per pound |
| Overhead | Rent, power, tools, spread over the pounds you make |
| Fees | Card and market fees as a share of the price |
Starting a sausage business is in sausage making business plan, and when inspection applies in usda meat inspection requirements.
An example: a pound of andouille
Gulf Coast Smokehouse, the made-up smokehouse in Lafayette, Louisiana, I use in these examples, grinds, stuffs and smokes 50 pounds of pork butt into andouille at a time and sells it at its own counter:
| 50 lb of pork butt | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Pork butt | 50 lb | $120.00 |
| Garlic, cayenne, spices and cure | $14.00 | |
| Hog casings | $12.00 | |
| Pecan wood | $8.00 | |
| A batch | $154.00 |
| A pound | Cost |
|---|---|
| Pork, spices, casings and wood, $154.00 ÷ 42 | $3.67 |
| Time, 240 minutes for the batch at $20 an hour ÷ 42 | $1.90 |
| Vacuum bag and label | $0.30 |
| Overhead | $0.80 |
| Full cost | $6.67 |
At a 40% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $6.67 ÷ 0.57 = $11.70, so $12.00. At $12.00 a pound, each leaves $4.97. The counter had said $10.00, which leaves $3.03. A 10-pound order at $9.50 a pound leaves $2.54 a pound and sells a whole batch's worth in a few calls before a holiday. Pricing the smokehouse's brisket by the pound works the same way as in how to price brisket.
Get the calculator
Download the sausage price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's ingredients, amounts and costs, the pounds it makes, the hands-on minutes, the bag 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 batch. Pork prices move by the week, a long smoke takes more weight, and links that break in the stuffer change what each pound really cost.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack costs each pound of sausage from its recipe and from what each batch used.
Recipes by weight. Each pound of sausage 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 sausage costs this week | Last season's sheet | True cost from the batch |
| What a batch lost in the smoker | Weighed once | Each batch's yield on record |
| 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.