Your candle price forgot the wick tabs, the tape, and the Etsy fee
“The wax, yes. The fragrance oil, usually. But the wick tabs? The shipping tape on each box? The 12 minutes of labor per candle? The PayPal fee on that Etsy sale?” — real buyer, https://craftybase.com/blog/how-to-price-candles
Most candle makers underprice because they only count the wax and fragrance oil. The quote above lists what gets missed: wick tabs, shipping tape, the 12 minutes of labor per candle, and the payment fee on every sale. A realistic 8oz candle might be $1.72 wax, $1.06 fragrance oil, $0.92 jar and lid, $0.14 wick, plus warning label, box, and tape (call it $0.85 packaging), $0.75 overhead, and 12 minutes of labor at $25/hr ($5.00). That is about $10.44 before you have made a cent, not the $3 of wax and oil people anchor to.
Then price for margin, not markup, because confusing the two is how profit disappears. A 50% markup on a $10.44 candle is $15.66, but that is only a 33% margin. To actually keep a 50% margin you divide cost by (1 minus the margin): $10.44 / (1 - 0.50) = $20.88. And if you sell on Etsy or take cards, gross the price up so the net after the fee still hits your target: divide by (1 minus the fee %). At a 6.5% platform fee, a $20.88 target net becomes about $22.33 listed.
The fix is to add up every real cost once and let the margin math run. Recipe Cost & Pricing Studio builds a candle from your materials inventory, adds packaging, overhead, and a labor line, and then prices it with an explicit margin-versus-markup toggle plus a platform-fee adjustment so your listed price still nets your target. It is a one-time purchase that works offline as a single file with no account and no subscription, so when wax or fragrance oil prices rise you update one number and every candle recosts itself.
Recipe Cost & Pricing Studio — one file, offline, yours forever.
No account, no subscription. One purchase, personalized with your name, works without internet.
Common questions
- What hidden costs do candle makers forget?The usual omissions are wick tabs, warning labels, boxes, tissue and shipping tape, per-candle labor, overhead like utilities and equipment, and the platform or payment fee on each sale. Together these often exceed the cost of the wax and fragrance oil, which is why candles priced on materials alone lose money.
- What is the difference between margin and markup on candles?Markup is a percentage of your cost; margin is a percentage of the selling price. A 50% markup on a $10 candle is $15, but that is only a 33% margin. To hit a true target margin use price = cost / (1 - margin), and keep wholesale on its own separate margin column.
- How do I account for Etsy and PayPal fees in my candle price?Gross the price up so the net after fees still meets your target: price = target_net / (1 - fee%). At a 6.5% fee, a $20.88 net becomes about $22.33 listed. Recipe Cost & Pricing Studio has a platform-fee field that does this for you so fees don't quietly eat your margin.