What to charge
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A category with a hard price anchor set by products made by the tanker-load.
Cost per bottle
Bottle, closure or trigger, label, induction seal, carton share.
Then raw materials, which are cheap: a ready-to-use cleaner is mostly water, and the actives are a few percent of a few percent.
Then labor, against finished bottles per hour rather than batch time.
Then shipping, which for a liquid is a real line and not an afterthought.
Where the cost actually is
The trigger is frequently the most expensive component in a spray cleaner, more than the bottle and far more than the contents.
Which reframes the whole economics: you are selling packaging with a small amount of chemistry in it, and the levers are the components and the freight rather than the formula.
It is also why sourcing a cheaper surfactant changes almost nothing and moving to a concentrate changes a great deal.
Three price points
Direct, at market or online, best margin and highest cost of selling.
Wholesale, conventionally about half of direct.
Janitorial and contract, lower again per unit and in far larger quantities, which is a different business with a different buyer.
Set direct so wholesale still clears, and check the result against the shelf. A small maker cannot win a price fight in this category and should not enter one.
Where the margin comes from
Not from beating the supermarket. From being a different product: a full ingredient list, a specific claim, a concentrate that ships cheaply, a refill model, a local or professional relationship.
And from removing freight, which is the cost that most distinguishes this category from the rest of the estate.
What the bottle costs you, at one unit
