How to price handmade candles: a worked cost example

Last updated: 15 October 2026 · By Quicksloth

Most candle pricing goes wrong in one of three places: the wax is costed from the jar size instead of the weight that goes in, your time is left out, or the marketplace fees are forgotten until the first payout. Here is one 8 oz soy candle priced from the supplies as you buy them to the price on the tag, with every step written out.

Short version: this candle costs $4.73 in materials and $10.23 once 15 minutes of work and its share of the monthly overhead are added. The common "2 × 2" rule gives $20.46 wholesale and $40.92 retail. If buyers will only pay $28, the candle still earns about $91 an hour for those 15 minutes before marketplace fees, and the lowest price that pays you at all sits far below that.

This is a worked example of a calculation, not business or tax advice. The supply prices are example figures; use what you really pay.

Step 1: supplies as you buy them

Write each supply the way it arrives: the price of the pack and how much is in it. The cost per unit is the pack price (plus any shipping and tax you paid on it) divided by the pack size, in the unit you measure with.

The bag of wax is the classic trap: it is sold by the pound and poured by the ounce. $45 for 10 lb is $4.50 a pound, but $0.28125 an ounce, because a pound is 16 ounces. Mixing the two makes the wax look 16 times cheaper or dearer than it is.

Step 2: wax and fragrance from the fill weight

The fill weight is what goes into the jar: wax and fragrance together. The most reliable way to get it is to weigh a filled jar and subtract the empty one. Without a scale, a common rule is to multiply the jar's capacity in fluid ounces by 0.86 to estimate the weight of the wax (Glassnow, 16 August 2024, read on 12 October 2026). This candle has a fill weight of 7.56 oz.

The fragrance load is the percentage of fragrance oil relative to the weight of the wax, not of the whole candle (Craftybase, last updated March 2026, read on 12 October 2026). The same page gives typical maximum loads of 6–12% for soy, paraffin and coconut waxes; check the maximum for your own wax. This example uses 8%.

• Wax = fill weight ÷ (1 + load) = 7.56 ÷ 1.08 = 7.00 oz
• Fragrance = wax × load = 7.00 × 0.08 = 0.56 oz

Check: 7.00 + 0.56 = 7.56 oz, the fill weight. Taking 8% of the whole 7.56 oz instead would give 0.60 oz of fragrance: a small difference per candle that adds up over a batch.

Step 3: materials for one candle

A lid, a dust cover or a box would go here too, each at its cost per piece.

Step 4: your time and the overhead

• Labor = minutes of work ÷ 60 × your hourly pay. Not counting the time the wax takes to set, this candle takes 15 minutes of hands-on work (prep, pouring, wicking, labelling, packing). At $20 an hour, an example figure for what an hour of your time is worth: 15 ÷ 60 × $20 = $5.00.
• Overhead = monthly costs that are not in any one candle (thermometer, pouring pitcher, test candles, website, packaging tape) ÷ candles made per month. $100 a month over 200 candles = $0.50.
• Total cost = materials + labor + overhead = $4.73 + $5.00 + $0.50 = $10.23.

Paying yourself in the cost is what keeps the price honest: a candle that "only costs $4.73" and sells for $12 looks profitable while it pays its maker very little.

Step 5: wholesale and retail

Many makers use "2 × 2": wholesale is twice the total cost, and retail is twice the wholesale price, so a shop that buys from you can still double its money.

• Wholesale = $10.23 × 2 = $20.46
• Retail = $20.46 × 2 = $40.92

That is a starting point, not a verdict. If $40.92 is more than your buyers pay for an 8 oz candle, the useful question is not "what is my markup" but "what do I really earn at the price I can charge", which the next two sections answer.

Margin is not markup

The two words get swapped all the time, and the numbers are very different:

• Markup = price ÷ total cost. At $40.92: 4.00×. At $28: 2.74×.
• Margin = profit ÷ price, where profit is price − total cost. At $40.92: $30.69 ÷ $40.92 = 75.0%. At $28: $17.77 ÷ $28 = 63.5%.

A margin can never reach 100%; a markup can be any number. "194% profit margin" is a markup written as a margin. These figures are before marketplace fees; with fees, profit and margin go down (see below).

Your real hourly pay

Your hourly pay in the cost is what you wanted to earn. Your real hourly pay is what the sale actually pays for your time:

Real hourly pay = (price − fees − materials − overhead − shipping you pay) ÷ hours of work

Before any fees, for 15 minutes (0.25 hours) of work:

• at $40.92: ($40.92 − $4.73 − $0.50) ÷ 0.25 = about $143 an hour;
• at $28: ($28 − $4.73 − $0.50) ÷ 0.25 = about $91 an hour.

So dropping from the 2 × 2 price to $28 is not a loss: it still pays well above the $20 you aimed for. The number to watch is this one, not the markup. It falls quickly when a candle takes longer than you think, which is why the minutes are worth timing once with a clock.

The lowest price after marketplace fees

Marketplaces usually take a percentage of the sale and a fixed amount per order or listing. The lowest price that still covers your costs, including your own pay, is:

Lowest price = (total cost + shipping you pay + fixed fees per order) ÷ (1 − the percentage fees added together)

To show the arithmetic, take made-up round numbers that are not any marketplace's real fees: 10% of the price in percentage fees and $0.50 in fixed fees per order, with free shipping you don't pay for separately.

• Lowest price = ($10.23 + $0.50) ÷ (1 − 0.10) = $11.92. Below that, each sale pays you less than your $20 an hour.
• At $28 the fees are $2.80 + $0.50 = $3.30, profit is $28 − $3.30 − $10.23 = $14.47, and real hourly pay is ($28 − $3.30 − $4.73 − $0.50) ÷ 0.25 = about $78 an hour.

Divide by (1 − percentages) rather than adding the percentages to the cost: the fees are taken from the final price, so adding 10% to $10.73 ($11.80) would still leave you short. Check your platform's current fee page for the real figures, and remember that some platforms also take their percentage from the shipping you charge, and add fees for currency conversion, payment processing or ads.

What this example assumes

• One candle per order. Fixed fees per order are shared when a buyer orders several.
• Weights in ounces. In grams the steps are the same; only the cost per unit changes (the same $45 bag of 10 lb is about $0.0099 per gram).
• No shipping or tax on the supply packs. If you pay them, add them to the pack price before dividing.
• Amounts are shown rounded to the cent and worked out from the unrounded figures, so a hand calculation with rounded numbers can differ by a cent.
• Supply prices, the $20 hourly pay and the $100 monthly overhead are example values.

Try it with your own candles

We are making a candle pricing calculator that does exactly these steps for up to 100 candles: you type your supplies as you buy them (pounds, ounces, grams or pieces), then one row per candle with its fill weight and minutes of work, and it shows the cost, wholesale and retail prices, margin and markup side by side, the lowest price after fees and your real hourly pay, plus a batch planner with a shopping list. It works in Excel and Google Sheets and is coming soon to our Etsy shop.

More spreadsheets on the templates page.

Not business or tax advice. The calculation shows what a candle costs and earns under the assumptions above; it doesn't know your market, your taxes or what your buyers will pay.