Working out what to charge
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Skincare pricing fails in a specific direction: brands cost the formula, ignore the testing, and price like a commodity.
Build the unit cost honestly
Per unit: ingredients at your real yield-adjusted rate, the container, the dispenser, the label, the carton if you use one, and the fill and label labor at a rate you would actually pay somebody.
For a 30 ml serum the packaging usually exceeds the formula, and an airless pack can exceed it several times over. That is the number to work on, not the ingredients.
Amortize the testing
This is the line other categories do not have. A challenge test, a stability study and a safety assessment, all per formula rather than per unit.
Divide the total by a realistic number of units you will sell of that product over its life, not over the first batch. Amortized across three years it is small; amortized across one launch batch it can exceed the cost of goods.
That arithmetic is the argument for a narrow range, and it is the arithmetic most brands do after launching eight products rather than before.
From unit cost to shelf price
Wholesale at roughly twice unit cost, retail at roughly twice wholesale, then check both against the category rather than against a guess.
The test that matters is whether the product is viable at the wholesale number, because a growing brand sells increasingly at that price and a product that only works at retail cannot take a stockist.
Sense-checking it
Compare against independent brands of similar size, not against mass market. Customers in this category read price as a signal of efficacy, so landing far below comparable products can suppress sales rather than drive them.
And check the delivered price for online. Glass is heavy, carriage is a large share at these values, and a price that works at a market can be unsellable in a parcel.