Your products
Your materials, channels and costs
Other cost is vessel, wick, label, box and anything that is not wax or fragrance. Wax and fragrance are grossed up for waste. Your time is charged at the hourly figure for the minutes each unit takes.
Add your products, then click Calculate.
Result
Cost and margin by product
| Product | Cost per unit | Online net | Online margin | Wholesale net | Retail floor for target | Net per month |
|---|
Price floors and ratios
| Product | Retail now | Retail floor | Wholesale now | Wholesale floor | Wholesale as % of retail | Online net per hour making |
|---|
Month
| Item | Value |
|---|
How it is calculated
Wax cost: wax oz ÷ 16 × price per pound ÷ (1 − waste). Fragrance cost: wax oz × load × price per ounce ÷ (1 − waste). Labor: minutes ÷ 60 × your hourly figure. Cost per unit: wax + fragrance + other + labor. Online net: retail × (1 − marketplace fee − payment fee) − cost. Fair net: retail × (1 − payment fee) − cost. Wholesale net: wholesale price − cost. Retail floor: cost ÷ (1 − fees − target margin); wholesale floor: cost ÷ (1 − target margin). Month: units × channel-weighted net, less booth fees and overhead; break-even units is fixed costs ÷ average net per unit. Wax shock: units × wax cost per unit × the rise.
Not modelled: sales tax, insurance, testing and labelling rules, shipping you pay, returns, breakage, unsold stock, equipment and studio rent beyond the overhead you enter. Unverified: tested on hand-calculated examples, not on a real maker's books. It computes arithmetic; it does not tell you what to charge.
Common questions
How do I price a candle?
Add up what one candle costs: wax, fragrance, vessel, wick, label, box and the time you spend making it. Then divide that cost by one minus the margin you want and by one minus the fees on the channel you sell through. The tool does this for every product on your own figures and shows the retail floor for your target margin.
What is a good wholesale price for a candle?
There is no single number, and this tool does not assert one. Enter the wholesale price a shop offers or asks for and it shows your net and margin at that price, with your wage and waste included, and the lowest wholesale price that still reaches your target margin.
How much fragrance oil goes in a candle?
Fragrance load is a percentage of wax weight and depends on your wax and the fragrance maker's guidance, which this tool does not replace. Enter your own load and price per ounce; the cost is wax ounces times load times price, grossed up for waste.
Why include waste?
Wax is lost in the pot, the pouring pitcher, trimmed tops and failed pours, so you pay for more wax than ends up in jars. The waste percentage grosses up wax and fragrance cost so the margin you see is the one you actually earn.
What does a wax price rise cost me?
Set the increase to test and the tool re-costs the wax in every product at the higher price and shows the monthly net you would lose if you held your prices.
Why charge myself an hourly wage?
If your time is free, every product looks profitable. Entering a wage shows the margin after paying yourself and, separately, what each hour of making earns when you pay yourself nothing, which is the number that tells you whether the business is a job or a hobby.
What does this leave out?
Sales tax, product liability insurance, testing and labelling rules, shipping you pay, returns, breakage, unsold stock, equipment and studio rent beyond the overhead you enter, and the cost of your own marketing. It is arithmetic on your figures, not advice on what to charge.
Is my information uploaded?
No. The calculation runs in your browser from figures you type, nothing is sent to a server, there are no accounts, and it works offline after the page loads.