The price of soap (?)

by Katherine
(Greece)

Hello Cathy

Im newbie in handmade soap but i loved it! I read and i learn every day new things and your site and your advices is a truly treasure of knowledge!
In time i want to try to sell some of my soaps but i dont know how to cost it. The gramms of my soaps are different. The price of soap depends on the grams? I Would like your advice on this because you are selling soaps and you have more experience than me.

Thanks a lot and keep the good work!

Answer:

To find out the cost per bar of handmade soap you will need to do a number of things first.

1. Decide on the recipe you will be using.

2. Price out all of the ingredients you will need and figure out how much each will cost per ounce or gram. Don't forget to include the price of shipping the ingredients to you in your cost.

3. Figure out how many soaps you will be making.

4. Decide on what form of packaging you will be using and divide the cost of the materials by the number of soaps you will be making.

Once you have done all of the above (this will not take in to account the cost of purchasing the equipment needed to make the soap) you can then figure out the cost of each bar.

You will also need to calculate how much time you spend
on making the soap and add in a wage for yourself.

Using your recipe, times the amount of each ingredient by the cost per gram or ounce of the same ingredient. Add them all up and divide by the number of soaps. Add in the cost of packaging.
Now you know how much each bar costs to make.

The next step is to decide on a price to sell the soap at. This part is completely up to you. Take into consideration who you are selling to and what the local economy is willing to pay for such a product.

The obvious goal is to sell the soap for more than it costs to make, including the wage that you pay yourself. Ideally, there will be extra money in there for experimentation and expansion of the business as well.

Smart shopping is very key. If you know you will be using a certain ingredient alot, buy it in a larger quantity. If you are travelling into a town that has a supplier, be sure to stop in to pick up some supplies while you are there to save shipping costs. Do not spend lots of money stocking up on supplies for an idea that has not been proven yet (experience tells me this one!). Be extra careful with expensive ingredients. They need to add value to the soap that the consumer is willing to pay for.

Hope those tips help you.
Good luck,

Good luck,
Cathy

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Price of soap
by: Alexandra

Soap Maker 3 software has helpred me a lot in figuring out pricing.

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Soap Prices
by: Christine (UK)

In reading the price of soap, I understood your explanation in theory, but is there a step-by-step example, or an 'idiot's guide' that can clearly break down the process of what you explain from start to finish, including:
how to work out a wage to pay yourself?
how to workout your time?
energy used, for example electricity?
And so on.


Hope this helps anyone else as well.

Answer:

Sorry but I don't have a guide.

You can check out Anne-Marie Faiola's (owner of Brambleberry) website "Teach Soap". One of her pages describes How to Price Your Cold Process Soap.

As you will see it can be quite the lengthy process and requires great record keeping.

Cathy

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Thanks
by: Katherine

Thanks a lot Cathy!

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