Guides
Hidden costs
The costs that never appear in the recipe: packaging, your time, cleanup, energy, rent, waste, delivery, fees and tax. How to turn each into a cost per unit.
Read the guide: The hidden costs of a food business, and how to count them
- The hidden costs of a food business, and how to count themThe costs that never appear in the recipe: packaging, your time, cleanup, energy, rent, waste, delivery, fees and tax. How to turn each into a cost per unit.→
- How to cost packaging and labels per unitHow to work out the cost per unit of bottles, caps, labels, seals and bags, counting the ones you spoil. With a hot sauce example and the arithmetic shown.→
- How to cost your own labour in a food businessHow to set an hourly rate for your own work, time each batch and turn it into a cost per unit. With a sourdough example and every step of the arithmetic.→
- How to allocate overhead to your food productsHow to add up monthly overhead and spread it across products by kitchen hours, by batch or by unit. With a three-product example and the arithmetic shown.→
- Setup and cleanup time: the cost nobody countsSetup, preheating, washing up and putting away take the same time every batch. How to measure it, cost it per unit and charge for it on small orders.→
- The real cost of delivery for a small food businessHow to work out what each delivery really costs you, whether you drive it yourself, use a courier or sell through an app, and the minimum order that pays.→
- Equipment depreciation for food businesses, made simpleHow to spread what you paid for your oven, mixer or freezer over the months you use it and the units you make, so that cost ends up in your price.→
- Payment fees and commissions: how to price them inHow to work out what card readers, online payments and apps take from each sale, and how to set a price that keeps your margin when customers pay by card.→
- The real cost of samples, tastings and giveawaysHow to work out what each tasting and free product costs you, how to tell whether it brings in sales, and how to set a monthly cap on what you give away.→
- How to include sales tax in your pricesHow to take tax out of a price, add it without losing margin, and why margin is worked out on the price before tax. With formulas, a table and an example.→
What does it really cost you?
Put your recipe into the free calculator: ingredients, packaging, your time and the gas. You get the cost per unit and your margin in two minutes, no account needed.