Wholesale pricing guide

Price a wholesale bakery order from the batches you must actually make

The buyer may request 70 pieces while your recipe yields 24. You cannot always mix exactly 2.92 batches, so the cost review should start with three whole batches and show what happens to the extra output.

1. Define the selling unit and requested quantity

Record whether the buyer is ordering individual pieces, boxes, trays, or kilograms. Also confirm the pack size, labels, delivery conditions, and whether tax or platform fees apply. A low unit price can become misleading when it excludes the packaging and work required for the actual order.

2. Round production up to whole batches

Use required batches = requested units ÷ recipe yield, rounded up. Then calculate produced units = required batches × recipe yield.

Worked example

A cookie recipe yields 24 pieces and costs 360 in your business currency per batch. An order for 70 pieces needs 70 ÷ 24 = 2.92, so production must be three whole batches. You make 72 pieces and the recipe cost is 1,080 before order-specific costs.

3. Add costs that belong to this order

Include wholesale boxes, labels, special decorations, additional labor, delivery, payment fees, and any realistic waste allowance. Keep these separate from the saved recipe when they apply only to this customer or order.

4. Compare revenue with the full production cost

If the wholesale price is 22 per piece, revenue for 70 pieces is 1,540. Suppose packaging and delivery add 180: total order cost is 1,260, profit is 280, and margin is 280 ÷ 1,540 × 100 = 18.18%.

That result is not automatically good or bad. Compare it with your own capacity, payment terms, customer-acquisition value, and target margin. Do not assume a larger order is worthwhile merely because total revenue is higher.

5. Decide how to treat extra output

The two extra cookies in the example may be saleable, samples, breakage cover, or waste. Write down the rule you are using. Counting them as guaranteed future revenue can overstate the order result; treating every extra unit as waste may understate it.

Before accepting the order

Confirm the recipe yield under normal production conditions.
Check whether the order changes labor, oven time, or packaging.
Review deposit, cancellation, delivery, and payment terms.
Keep the preview separate from the saved recipe unless you intentionally update it.