How Much Does It Cost to Make a Candle? Soy Candle Cost and Pricing Calculator

A soy candle with 7 oz of wax in a jar costs about $4.76 in materials at typical small-batch supply prices: $1.53 of wax, $0.98 of fragrance oil and $2.25 for the wick, jar and label. A selling price that covers everything else is three to four times that number. Below is a calculator you can fill with your own prices, and the same math worked out by hand so you can see where every cent comes from.

Candle cost calculator

The starting values are typical US retail supply prices, not our own costs. Replace them with the numbers on your receipts: wax and fragrance per pound, wick, jar and label per piece.

Worked example: the cost of a 7 oz soy candle

7 oz of wax sits between what an 8 oz jelly jar (6.6 oz) and a 9 oz straight-sided jar (7.4 oz) take when filled half an inch below the rim, as in the chart in our soy wax calculator. Fragrance is 8% of the wax weight, the load we start every new scent at.

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The Complete Wavemade Guide to Natural Candle Making

Costing a batch, from wax and fragrance to jars, wicks and labels, is one chapter of the ebook; recipes for specific containers are another.

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Where the money actually goes

The surprise in most first cost sheets: wax, the thing everyone starts by pricing, is a third of the cost. The jar, wick and label, bought by the piece, are almost half. Fragrance at 8% costs about two thirds as much as the wax while weighing twelve times less.

• The jar is usually the biggest single line. Buying by the case instead of a few at a time can lower it noticeably, and the saving repeats on every candle.
• Fragrance oil is expensive in 1 oz and 4 oz bottles. Once you know your scents, a larger size cuts the cost per candle more than cheaper wax would. The dose is always a percentage of wax weight: how much fragrance oil per pound of wax.
• Wax in a 50 lb case is cheaper per pound than a 10 lb bag, but at small scale the difference per candle is smaller than it looks.
• The label has to fit warnings and your business details. You design it once; printing more at a time lowers the price per piece.

Want a cheaper product to start with? Wax melts need no jar and no wick, which removes almost half the cost in the table. The recipe is in how to make soy wax melts.

Candle cost by size

Wax and fragrance scale with the size of the candle; the wick, jar and label barely do. At the example prices, every ounce of wax with 8% fragrance costs about 36 cents (22 cents of wax, 14 cents of oil). Wax weights are from the chart in our soy wax calculator:

What we learned at the bench: a small candle has the highest cost per ounce, because its jar and label cost nearly as much as a large one's. So the price of a small candle cannot simply be a proportional slice of the large one. Cost every size separately, with its own wax weight and jar price in the calculator, and remember that a large two-wick jar adds a second wick to the sum.

What the calculator does not count

Material cost is not the cost of a candle. The x3-x4 markup exists because behind every candle you sell there are costs that never show up on the wax invoice:

• electricity or gas for melting, and the heat gun for smoothing tops,
• burn tests: every new scent and every new wick means at least one candle burned all the way down in the workshop,
• failed candles with sunken tops, wet spots or a crooked wick,
• shipping boxes, fill and tape if you ship,
• marketplace fees and payment processing,
• your time: weighing, melting, pouring, cleaning up, photos, packing and answering messages.

On top of that comes one-time equipment: a scale, a thermometer, a pouring pitcher, a heat source. The full list, with what is worth buying, is in candle making supplies for beginners.

Candle pricing: how to set your price

1. 1

   Work out the material cost per candle

   With the calculator above and your own receipts. For the wax weight per jar, use how much soy wax per candle.

2. 2

   Multiply by 3: your floor price

   Never go below it, whether you sell wholesale to a shop or at a craft market. In the example that is $14.28.

3. 3

   Multiply by 4: your retail price

   The price for a customer buying directly from you, on your own site or a marketplace. In the example $19.05.

4. 4

   Check the market

   Look at what handmade soy candles of a similar size sell for. If your number is far above, look for savings in the jar and the fragrance, not in the quality of the wax.

5. 5

   Do not compete on price with a factory

   A mass-market candle will always be cheaper. Your edge is the scent, the finish and the story, which we cover in handmade soy candles.