Ingredients, labor, packaging, overhead — broken down to the penny. Set your margin. Get your price.
Batch of 24
Butter, lemons, flour, sugar, eggs...
2.5 hrs × $5.00/hr
24 × cello bag + label
Electricity, license, wear
$1.11 per bar
Sell At
$3.00
per bar
Profit
63%
margin
Trusted by 0 cottage bakers in 44 states
Most cottage bakers price by gut feel. They cover flour and sugar but miss the hours, the packaging, the oven running, the license fee. With food costs up 28% since 2022, the gap is growing.
Flour is $0.42 of your cookie cost. But did you count the $0.08 of vanilla extract? The $0.03 of baking soda? It adds up.
3 hours decorating a cake at $0/hr isn't a hobby — it's unpaid labor. Even at $5/hr, that's $15 you're eating.
Butter went from $3.49 to $5.49 in two years. Your prices stayed the same. Your margin didn't.
No spreadsheet gymnastics. No guessing.
Type in your ingredients, quantities, and how long it takes. We handle unit conversions.
Ingredients to the gram, labor by the hour, packaging per unit, plus your overhead split across all recipes.
Choose your target profit margin. CottageCalc tells you exactly what to charge — per item, per batch.
Butter went up at the store? Change the price once and every recipe that uses butter updates instantly.
Drag to simulate a price change
Built for cottage bakers who want to run a real business from their kitchen.
Cost every ingredient down to the gram. We handle unit conversions — cups to ounces, sticks to tablespoons.
Log prep time, bake time, and decorating. Set your hourly rate and see exactly what your time costs per batch.
Cello bags, labels, ribbon, boxes — add your packaging items with per-unit costs. Never forget the $0.45 bag again.
Cottage food license, electricity, equipment wear — set your monthly overhead and we split it fairly across recipes.
Double a recipe for the Saturday market. Costs scale automatically — ingredients, labor, packaging, everything.
See which recipes make money and which don't. Track margins over time as ingredient prices change.
"I was charging $2 for cookies that cost me $1.87 to make. I thought I was making money. I was making 13 cents."
Maria R.
Sells at Westside Farmers Market, Austin
"The cascade feature saved me during the butter price spike. I updated one number and knew exactly which recipes needed a price bump."
Sarah K.
Home bakery, Portland OR
"I went from a spreadsheet with 47 tabs to knowing my exact cost per cupcake in seconds. Wish I had this when I started."
Jamie T.
Cottage-licensed in Michigan
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For serious cottage bakers
CottageCalc is a costing and pricing tool — it works regardless of your state's specific cottage food regulations. We currently have bakers in 44+ states using it. We don't handle licensing or compliance, just the numbers.
Yes! Pro users can import recipes via CSV. Upload your spreadsheet and we'll map columns to our fields. Most bakers are set up in under 10 minutes.
Overhead includes fixed costs that aren't tied to a specific recipe: your cottage food license, electricity for the oven, equipment depreciation, and insurance. You set a monthly total and CottageCalc divides it proportionally across your active recipes.
Absolutely. Your recipes are yours. We never share, sell, or publish your data. Recipes are encrypted at rest, and you can export or delete everything at any time.
Spreadsheets break. When butter prices change, you'd have to update every formula in every tab. CottageCalc lets you change one ingredient price and every recipe recalculates automatically. Plus, we handle unit conversions, batch scaling, and margin calculations — no formula errors.
Then CottageCalc is free for you — forever. No credit card, no trial period, no catch. The free plan includes the full cost breakdown, pricing suggestions, and cascade recalculation. Upgrade only when you need more than 10 recipes.
Every recipe has a true cost. Find yours in minutes.
Free forever for 10 recipes. No credit card required.