How to Price Tortillas: A Pack of 10, With a Calculator

To price a pack of 10 flour tortillas you add up its full cost first: the flour and lard by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the bag and label, and a share of overhead like rent and power. That's what one pack 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 pack of 10 that costs $3.25 to make, a 55% margin after 3% fees means $7.75, rounded up to $8.00. Pressing and cooking by hand, about six minutes a pack, costs more than twice the ingredients. A grocer pays less and marks it up on its shelf. In the example below, a Tucson tortilla maker prices its packs for the market and a grocer.

The short version

• Full cost = flour, lard, salt and baking powder a pack + your time + 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.
• Time the pressing; it's the biggest cost by hand.
• A press cuts the time most, as the bulk run shows.
• Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
• TaroStack costs each pack of tortillas from its recipe and what each batch used. More below.

What goes into a pack's cost

The business's year is in tortilla business plan, and what a press does to the cost in how to make tortillas in bulk.

An example: a pack of tortillas

Saguaro Salsa Co., the made-up salsa and tortilla maker in Tucson, Arizona, I use in these examples, makes flour tortillas by hand, 30 packs of 10 at a time:

At a 55% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $3.25 ÷ 0.42 = $7.75, so $8.00. At $8.00 a pack, each leaves $4.51. The market had said $7.00, which leaves $3.54. The grocer's $5.25 leaves $1.84 a pack by hand; with a press, the bulk run's lower cost leaves far more. What the tortillas earn across the year is in is selling tortillas profitable.

Get the calculator

Download the tortilla price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's ingredients, amounts and costs, the packs 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. Flour and lard prices move, a new helper presses slower, and packs that mold before their date change what each one sold really cost.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack costs each pack of tortillas from its recipe and from what each batch used.

Recipes by weight. Each pack of tortillas 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 pack of tortillas?

Work out the full cost, flour, lard, salt, pressing time, the bag and overhead, then divide by 1 minus your margin and fee rate; the example's $3.25 pack prices at $8.00 for a 55% margin.

How do you calculate the cost of a pack of tortillas?

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

What is a good profit margin on packs?

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 pack of tortillas?

In the example, $3.25 for 10 by hand, most of it labor; a press brings it down.