Working out what to charge
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The arithmetic, in order, with the numbers this craft actually has.
Cost per bar, built up
Batch material cost divided by sellable bars, not bars cut.
Materials means oils, lye, water if metered, fragrance, color and additives, each at the price you paid including shipping.
Then packaging per bar: band or box, label, and any tissue or bag.
Worked: a batch costing $9.60 in materials yielding 8 sellable bars is $1.20 per bar, plus $0.35 of band and label, giving $1.55.
Labor
Time the whole process once, honestly: weighing, mixing, pouring, cleanup, unmolding, cutting, planing, wrapping, labeling.
Divide the total minutes by sellable bars to get minutes per bar, then apply your hourly rate.
Worked: 4.5 hours on a batch of 8 bars is 34 minutes a bar, which at $20 an hour is $11.25 a bar.
Which is the number that shocks people, and it is why batch size is the main lever in this craft: the same 4.5 hours across 24 bars is $3.75.
Overhead per bar
Annual overhead divided by annual sellable bars.
Include insurance, market fees, website and payment fees, shelving, and the space if you pay for it.
Worked: $2,400 a year over 1,200 bars is $2.00 a bar.
Card and marketplace fees are a percentage rather than a fixed cost, so apply them to the price at the end rather than here.
From cost to price
Add the three: materials and packaging, labor, overhead. That total is break-even per bar.
Set wholesale above it with margin, then set retail at roughly twice wholesale.
Doing it in that order is the point: pricing retail first and halving it is how makers arrive at a wholesale price below cost.
Then check the retail figure against what the category actually sells for, and if it is far above, the fix is batch size or packaging rather than a lower price.
What the bottle costs you, at one unit
