How Much Is A Dozen Cookies: Amazing Pricing Guide
Many people love baking, and baking cookies at home can be a delightful experience. Your kitchen will be filled with warmth and the irresistible aroma of freshly baked treats. However, have you ever wondered about how to calculate the cost of making a dozen cookies?
If you intend to make some profit from your homemade yummy cookies, then this article “Pricing Your Homemade Cookies: How Much Is A Dozen Cookies?” is for you. You will get useful tips to track the costs of making cookies as well as set fair prices if you’re selling them.
Cookie or biscuit (in British English) is a kind of baked dessert that is usually in a flat and small shape with a delicious sweet taste. The main ingredients of original and basic cookies are flour, egg, sugar, butter, and oil. It also includes some ingredients such as oats, raisins, chocolate chips, or nuts.
The word “cookie” is derived from the “koekje” Dutch word. These “little cakes” originated back in 7th century Persia, one of the first regions to cultivate sugar. They were very common cakes in Europe by the 14th century. Then, cookies evolved into diverse varieties as well as became a popular treat due to their convenience and delightful taste.
Like cupcakes or gateaux cake, cookies come in a variety of forms, flavors, and textures, which reflect and depend on different culinary traditions. Chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, peanut butter cookies, gingerbread cookies, and shortbread cookies – these are some popular kinds of cookies that are loved by people around the world.
To know how to set profit for your homemade cookies, you have to cover all the costs in there. Let’s break down what kinds of costs in detail:
Ingredients Cost
Remember to save the list of ingredients you bought to make cookies. Then, based on your cookie recipe, you can add up and calculate the cost of all ingredients, such as flour, brown sugar, egg, butter, and chocolate chips.
A pro tip for you is that you should calculate the costs of cookies by weight. This will make it easy for you to multiply the cost depending on the amount of cookies you bake.
To do that, you can weigh your ingredient recipe on a food scale. Or else you can find information on the weight of your recipe online.
Keep in mind that the cost of ingredients can fluctuate. So tracking how much you are paying will let you know when you should raise the prices of cookies.
Package & Label Cost
Not like serving cookies in the family, you just need to place them on plates. If you intend to sell your homemade cakes, you must include the costs of labels and packaging.
This will depend on how you want to package your cookies. Do you want to wrap them individually, or packaging by dozen? If you are selling your cookies by the dozen, you will wrap them all together or pack each and then put them all in one package again? Then, you have to include more cost of label and packaging for a dozen cookies.
Labor Cost
Labor is the cost of the time and effort you spend to finish the cakes. These factors will depend on how complex the cookies are. Bar cookies, or salted caramel oatmeal cookies of course need less labor than salted brownie crinkle cookies or royal icing sugar cookies.
When calculating this labor cost, it may include:
- Mixing dough or batter
- Making icing
- Rolling, cutting, and shaping the cakes
- Baking
- Packaging the finished cakes
- Decorating the cookies
After you have the labor cost, divide that time by the total quantity of cookies you have in a batch.
Indirect Costs
They are the fixed costs that you must spend to run your business, such as renting a shop and website maintenance. Divide the total monthly expenses by your monthly sales, then you will have the cost per dollar value. Note down the number for calculating the selling price later.
Variable Costs
Besides fixed costs, don’t forget to include the variable costs in your calculation. These costs can be pastry bags, labels for each recipe, and parchment. Variable costs will increase when your cookie production increases.
The final cost of the cookie will be the sum of all the above costs: Ingredients, package & label, labor, indirect & variable costs. Each type of cookie will have a different cost. When all your numbers are ready, we will learn how to set the profit margin for your yummy cookies.
How Much Is Good Profit You Can Expect?
The profit margin will vary based on your skill level, your reputation as well as your target customers. If the customers love your cookies, it is reasonable for you to set higher prices and get bigger profits.
The minimum profit margin highly recommended to you is 30%. For example, the cookie cost of each is $2, then you sell it at $2.3 price.
Home-based bakers usually want to sell individual homemade cookies. If you follow this way, you should offer incentive prices to upsell more. For example, $2 for each cookie, $3 for 2 cookies, and $7 for 5 cookies.
In case you produce cookies in big amounts for selling on the online marketplace or custom orders, you may want to price your cookies by the dozen. With simple cookies at a cheap cost, it is great to sell them in a dozen. With premium or complex cookies, the single package may be your better choice.
A dozen cookies typically refer to 12 cookies. The price of a dozen cookies can be as high or low as the type and quality of the cookies may be, together with the place and the baker. The average price of a basic dozen cookies would lie between $5 to $15.
For example, classic chocolate chip cookies probably cost around $10 per dozen from a local bakery. At the same time, gourmet cookies from a specialty store can cost you up to $15 for a dozen. Online bakeries and big-box stores usually give prices at $5 or $6 for a dozen because they carry bulk packs at a lesser cost.
Last Words
It’s always a great idea to turn your baking cookie skills into business. By carefully calculating the cost of each type of cookie and setting competitive prices, you can earn more profits than you can expect.
