Candles
Candle cost calculator
What one candle costs you once your time is counted, and what it has to sell for to survive contact with a wholesale order.
How this is calculated
The doubling at each step is keystone pricing, the long-standing default in handmade goods. The first double covers everything that isn't materials or direct labour: shipping supplies, failed batches, marketplace fees, insurance, the fragrance you bought and hated. The second gives a stockist enough margin to want to carry you.
Worked example
An 8 oz soy candle at 177 g wax and 14 g fragrance, six minutes of labour at $22 an hour:
- Wax
- 0.39 lb × $3.50 = $1.37
- Fragrance
- 0.49 oz × $1.80 = $0.89
- Vessel, wick, packaging
- $2.20 + $0.18 + $1.05 = $3.43
- Materials
- $5.69
- Labour
- 0.1 h × $22 = $2.20
- Unit cost
- $7.89
- Wholesale / retail
- $15.78 / $31.56
The mistake almost everyone makes
Pricing at materials cost times some multiple, without counting labour at all.
It produces a number that feels reasonable and hides the fact that you're working for nothing. In the example above, materials alone would suggest a retail price near $23 - which reads as competitive on Etsy and pays you $0 an hour. The gap between $23 and $31 is the entirety of your wages.
It becomes acute at wholesale. A stockist ordering fifty units at a price set from materials alone is fifty units of unpaid work delivered in one week. Businesses fail at exactly this point, having grown their way into it.
If your retail price is below the wholesale figure above, you cannot fill a wholesale order profitably at any volume. Worth knowing before a boutique asks, rather than after you've said yes.
Common questions
How much does it cost to make a candle?
For a typical 8 oz soy container candle, materials run about $5 to $7 - roughly $1.40 of wax, $0.90 of fragrance, and $3 to $4 for the vessel, wick, lid, label and box. Adding labour at a modest hourly rate takes the all-in figure to $8 to $10.
What should I charge for a candle?
Two to four times your all-in cost depending on channel - wholesale at roughly two times, direct retail at roughly four. For an 8 oz candle costing around $8 to make, that's about $16 wholesale and $28 to $32 retail.
Should I include my own labour in the cost?
Yes, always. Labour is usually the second-largest line after the vessel, and leaving it out is what makes a business look profitable while producing no income. Price it at what you'd have to pay someone else to do the work.
What margin should a candle business aim for?
Around 50% gross at wholesale and 70 to 75% at retail, calculated against all-in unit cost. Below that there isn't enough left to absorb shipping, fees, returns and the batches that don't work.
Chandler is the iOS app - the same candle calculations, on your phone at the bench, with your batches saved.
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