How Much Do Decorated Sugar Cookies Cost

When potential clients ask for my pricing tabular array, I get sticker shock, a lot. In an endeavour to educate the masses on why these cookies are and then pricey, let's look a breakdown of materials and process. — This doesn't utilize merely for cookies, but for many habitation based, hand-crafting business.

Fall Themed Sugar Cookies

Hither's what goes into making 1 DOZEN of these cookies, which I charged $55 USD for . These are standard size cookies, approx. 3-4 inches on their longest side. I challenge every unmarried cookier out in that location to hit intermission and do this analysis for their state of affairs. It's truly eye opening. Some folks volition be faster or slower, that's fine, baseline it according to YOUR reality.

Make Dough: ten minutes (note– I did not account for spooky time considering it's dead time and I do other stuff while dough chills)
Cut and broil — some of these had to exist hand cut considering I don't own the cutter for them, so it takes longer! 20 minutes
Make Icing: 5 minutes
Color icing & make a few different consistencies: 15 minutes
Decorate: 50 minutes — note I did non count drying time! And did not count time resting in-between layers– this is all bodily Easily ON time for the dozen
Make clean Up: 10 minutes
Packaging: 10 minutes
Client communications (starts at pace 0 really), research, cookie design, coordinating pickup: 1 hour — clients expect this part to be free, but you need to find a fashion to account for this toll in your service

I as well accounted for the fact that some of these steps can be done concurrently, for example while the cookies are baking and cooling, I can make and color the icing. So this way, I am non double-counting my fourth dimension. And so hither's what it breaks down to for ONE DOZEN cookies:

Material Toll: $5.25 (materials, ingredients+ piping numberless, coloring, icing, labeling, bags, etc. everything)
Total Time: approx. 3 hours (BTW– this is pretty fast for a detailed dozen cookies)

Again, I charged $55/doz — then what does that hateful? Simply put, profit = revenue – costsThis ways: $55 – $5.25 – $1.fifty for misc. costs below = $50$49.75/3 hrs = Means my hourly rate is: $16.58 per hour. — READ ON to understand what this actually means because this DOES Non tell the whole story. Misc. Costs: You are not literally decorating cookies every waking minute. Lots of time is dedicated to admin, answering client inquiries that go nowhere, dealing with a gazillion questions that also become nowhere. In that location are costs associated with packaging materials (and SEARCHING for the right packaging!), ink, gas, & other modest materials. Every cello bag, every sticker, every baggie and shipping box = $$ . Keep in mind you're also buying tons of cookie cutter, stencils, airbrush machine/food colors, brushes, and misc. other supplies; how can y'all account for this? We still need to pay taxes (although nosotros do go to write off all business related purchases), don't get insurance, paid time off or any kind of other benefits that many "full fourth dimension twenty-four hours jobs" become– merely we actually SHOULD be treating our businesses like what information technology is, a business organization! If you are serious well-nigh doing this for profit:

Get Really DAMN Proficient at what you do so y'all can Charge appropriately for YOUR SKILL LEVEL
Price appropriately and empathize that it'south OK and expected that non everyone tin can or want to afford your product. 75% of my client inquiries don't result in a custom cookie order– I'k ok with that!

Something you Tin do it to find ways to REDUCE TIME SPENT on decorating and detect ways to automate other processes similar ordering, label press, aircraft (if applicative), etc. wherever possible. Make ordering easier- utilise forms and invoicing services– normally these are super cheap add together ons for your website or come up on mobile apps and it'southward so worth it to spend that few bucks. Don't cheap out on things that volition save you and then much time in return. At the end of the mean solar day – everyone'southward situation is dissimilar. Depending on what your goals for your concern are (hobby, part time, full time), you need to set your targets accordingly. Pricing should also vary based on YOUR SKILL LEVEL & Feel. I stress this so much. If you lot are a beginner you need to get existent about your product quality and make certain if you are charging a lot, it's worth it. Same goes for the cookie pros– charge what you're worth. This tin also differ based on location– some metropolitan areas can support higher prices than others. Practise your inquiry. Sympathise your demographic. Some other things to keep in mind:

Charging more is really uncomfortable. But growth does not come without discomfort, like any other grade of modify. You can await to lose some existing clients, but yous'll probably gain more. You lot will have on less orders, merely make more than money.
We, as pocket-size concern are ALL Answerable for upholding the perception of similar businesses. This means that if some of us undercharge, customers will start expecting that. So when y'all are under charging, you are doing nobody a favor at the end of the 24-hour interval, except for the client you undercharged– except even then, that is a temporary shame since they will walk away with a simulated perception…and have unrealistic expectations for their next order… and then you lot decide if that's good or bad.

If y'all are struggling with your business and are SERIOUS nigh taking a hard wait at your business organization and making some changes for the better, I do offer a very comprehensive cookie consult in my shop (Link TBD equally I updated my website)

Source: https://blog.borderlandsbakery.com/cookie-decorating-resources/cookie-pricing/

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