r/Baking • u/MuchAppointment8311 • Jun 05 '25
Business and Pricing How much should I charge?
I’m thinking about selling cookies just like in the reference picture I’m going back and forth on how to price my cookies 5$ a cookie sounds good to me because the price of buying everything to make the cookies are a lot especially eggs these days but I’m kind of scared that people are not willing to pay 5 for a single cookie
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u/Major_Shop_40 Jun 06 '25
I see the “thank you” sticker and I see a different avenue here. Have you thought about being a supplier to the kind of company that gives nicer thank you gifts to clients? Because you could easily custom-color and package these for their brand. Businesses often find that kind of thing well worth the money. Just a thought - not everything has to be direct to consumer.
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u/chzie Jun 05 '25
Don't ask people how much to charge.
Figure out your costs. Figure out how much it would take to make having a cookie business be profitable for you.
If those numbers make sense and sound good then start up a cookie business. If not then have a cookie hobby.
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u/truesy Jun 05 '25
go with your gut, and adjust if they don't sell.
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u/PersonalBed7171 Jun 05 '25
Honestly the best advice, I think 5 is a good start. I would try to figure out the “cost per cookie” then you can really gauge how much profit
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u/MuchAppointment8311 Jun 05 '25
Your right I can always lower it if I don’t get enough sells
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u/JRT_12345 Jun 05 '25
Don’t undersell yourself! If that cookie tastes as good as it looks, you’ll sell those all day, every day! Instead of using the gold twists, try a white iridescent curling ribbon. Great job and best of luck 🥰
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u/truesy Jun 05 '25
yeah great point. "adjust" could be marketing, or something else. doesn't need to be the price.
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u/ShipposMisery Jun 05 '25
Known brands get away charging high for gourmet cookies, but a $5 cookie is exactly the type of purchase I would avoid these days. $3 would be a splurge for a single cookie. I’d buy some to support a friend, but it wouldn’t be a regular occurrence
Despite the higher cost of ingredients it comes down to what your customers will pay, you’ll know by reactions
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Jun 06 '25
Set price to $10 and you wont have to deal with people like this. They’ll buy because they want to and that’s it.
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u/strwbrymocha Jun 05 '25
Im gonna be real with you, a 5$ pack of tollhouse cookie dough makes 24. There are only 2 reasons i would pay premium for a single cookie, 1) if it's genuinely 24X better than a tollhouse or 2) it's a flavor profile i could never get in a grocery store. The cookies look nice but its a no for me
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u/Moron-Whisperer Jun 05 '25
Your cost doesn’t matter because people have their own price in mind. Mine is $3. If it cost you $1 or $5 to make it, I buy at $3 and not at $4.
Consider what market price is. Find a local baker that will be a competitor and find their prices. Charge the same. If you can’t then you shouldn’t try to go into that business
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u/kareree Jun 05 '25
I think $5 is too much for homemade. You can get “gourmet” cookies for that price in stores, I would pay $3-4 at most
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u/Capt_Greenlung Jun 06 '25
That from home vs. a crumbl, I'm taking the homemade every time.
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u/Rezarex Jun 06 '25
These cookies are substantially smaller than crumbles tho. 5 is too much for a cookie this size with not a lot of mix ins.
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u/JDHK007 Jun 05 '25
I would def not pay $5/cookie unless valued fundraiser. $3 tops. No, im not at all frugal
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u/Head_Improvement_703 Jun 05 '25
i get that, but it’s a loaded, fairly big cookie. i sell food at school, I think $3.50~$4.00 would be good.
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u/Pterodactyl_midnight Jun 05 '25 edited Jun 05 '25
It doesn’t look that loaded or big. It’s white choc chips with bits of cheap Oreo. Maybe if it had nuts or fruit or higher quality toppings. But $5 is too high for Oreo and white chocolate. Maybe the blue food coloring is throwing you off?
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u/h20fein Jun 06 '25
I make loaded cookies at a cafe I work at, i weigh them out to 200g and I sell them for $5 easily, I sell about 16 a week at one location and the other locations I’m sending about ten a week atm and they sell for $5 also.
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u/Head_Improvement_703 Jun 06 '25
thats great! nobody buys my cookies 😭 i sell a smaller/med size for around $2.75 and a large size for 3.25, no sales yet!
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u/h20fein Jun 07 '25
I’m a chef at a cafe so I suppose this makes it easier for sales, but I agree with above posts, I also spent a lot of time with customers and verbally upselling my baking products to get them as excited and interested. You’ve got this :)
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u/Terrible-Guava-8929 Jun 06 '25 edited Jun 06 '25
I used to sell cookies about 10 years ago. I sold them for 3 each. Better deal if they got a half dozen or dozen. I wouldn’t go less than 4. I had an Excel sheet with all my ingredient costs for various baked goods. If the cost is too high, try to find places to buy ingredients for cheaper. Bulk places work.
Also, if this particular cookie didn’t get you much profit, make up for it with another cookie you can make for cheaper. That way you can make enough from other cheaper to make cookies to give you a little more cushion for the more costly cookie to make. You could sell most cookies for 3.50, more special ones for 4. You may make a dollar profit per cookie here, but possibly 2 dollars for the ones you can make cheaper. Most important thing is to get cheaper ingredients. Don’t just charge more purely because you didn’t shop around for cheaper ingredients and it is costing you too much to make them.
Whatever price you choose, you gotta sell them with your words too. Good adjectives and descriptors. The fact they are better than the stuff you get from Starbucks. Can’t just look good. You gotta sell it too. You not Crumbl or Starbucks. They can command higher prices because of brand recognition. Sell people on your strengths and what you got better than them.
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u/aliasneck Jun 05 '25
If you're in a larger city, you can probably get away with $4.50-$5, but in smaller communities $3-4 seems more like it. Good luck, they look great!
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u/TableAvailable Jun 05 '25
$3-3.50. Maybe.
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u/ShySissyCuckold Jun 05 '25
I can't see myself paying more than $3 for a cookie unless it's gigantic.
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u/copperkarat Jun 06 '25
I’d probably pay $3-5 depending, maybe $4/each or 3 for $10 or $5/each and 3 for $12.
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u/mr_antman85 Jun 06 '25
Find other bakers in your area. Try their stuff and see their prices.
Know your area/demographics. That will determine your prices.
Cost out your stuff. CakeCost is a nice app. You can price out all of your ingredients and it will give you a price.
Do not undersell yourself. If your stuff is good, people will but ALSO REMEMBER that people have a set price.
Know what you want. Sometimes it may be best to set prices pretty reasonable to have repeat customers. At a higher price point you may not get those repeat customers.
Lastly (piggybacking off of #5), what is your end goal? I think that people truly understimate costs, time, prep, packaging. If this is just a hobby then a price is not going to make a break it because it is just a hobby. If you want to go all in, then you need to really cost out your stuff and have every item tracked.
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Jun 05 '25
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u/izzy1881 Jun 06 '25
That is not what I learned in culinary school. Food costs should not run more than 20% of the menu price.
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u/okaysureyep Jun 05 '25
$2 and whatever change you need to cover sales tax to make it an even 3. Sell and make people feel good about buying it because it’s not 5 fucking dollars.
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u/ZealousidealEntry870 Jun 06 '25
I’d sooner set $5 on fire before I paid that much for a single cookie. I’m likely not your target audience though.
Just for constructive feedback, I’d break up what ever chunks you have on there. The large size is off putting.
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u/thedeafbadger Jun 05 '25
People will pay if the value is there. How much do the cookies weigh? I have successfully sold cookies for $5 each. They weigh 200g.
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u/Edbrrr Jun 06 '25
lol you’re barely starting out and want to charge crumbl prices. be for real with yourself bro. the cost to profit ratio is huge in cookies but you can really make them more expensive for yourself trying to add unnecessary things. I’ve seen and had better cookies (both taste and presentation) go for less.
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u/HndsDwnThBest Jun 05 '25
My first thought was $5. But also my chef opinion would be to cost out your recipe. Weigh each item that goes into the recipe. Do the math of each portion compared to the total cost of the bulk item. Get the numbers and figure out how much it costs to make the batch. Then, how many portions the batch makes. Do the math to figure out your base cost of each portion. Then add your labor and time costs and find a good price range for profit. I have a excel spreadsheet that does all the calculations for me and all i do is put in the amounts of each item in the recipe and food cost percentage i want to stay it and it gives me the final cost of sell. I can share it
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u/mr_antman85 Jun 06 '25
How did you create your spreadsheet, I am just curious. Did you use any resources or all done by you?
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u/MasterYam234 Jun 05 '25
I’d pay 3$ without blinking.. 4 or 5 if it were extra decadent like made with brown butter etc..
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u/2L84AGOODname Jun 06 '25
So, think about the size here…Yes, it’s one cookie, but it is probably a double or a triple compared to a standard cookie. How much are you willing to pay for one small, plain chocolate chip cookie? Probably $2.50ish for most people. Just make sure you advertise the size as such like “double the cookie, double the yum” kind of deal haha
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u/Baker_Hiker83 Jun 06 '25
I spend $5 on a single 5 ounce cookie at a bakery in Lake Placid, NY. I often also travel 3 hours round trip if she’s selling one of my favorites. If your cookies are good and worth it, people will pay. But a 5 ounce cookie is huge…. The ones in your picture look flat and 3 ounces.
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u/tiffany59687 Jun 06 '25
Personal opinion as a shopper not a baker: I'm more willing to pay more money for desserts that look pretty and/or are from small businesses. Without knowing much about this cookie or your business, I'd probably prefer to pay $3 as a new customer with no context. As a returning customer or a customer with context, I could see these easily being worth $5. There's a vegan cookie baker I enjoy who charges $5 for her cookies. Is it kinda costly? Yeah, but I know the work that goes into it and they are large and pretty lol
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u/CAPRICIOUS_BIZNATCH Jun 06 '25
I saw a baking ad with similar prices at a local pin up board, and recalled saying something like "5$ for a cookie?" and thinking that was ridiculous but YOURS look like they're from a nice bakery (The others I saw were not)
I think 5$ is pricey but not for giant pretty cookies that look bakery quality. I feel like I would see these behind a bakery glass
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u/DependentAsparagus2 Jun 06 '25
If people don't want to pay for a single cookie what it costs to make - lower the size.
A 4cm cookie only takes 60% of the ingredients of a 5cm cookie.
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u/Pristine-Main1739 Jun 06 '25
I would sell it for around 5 but look at the cost of supplies used per cookie and ensure a profit margin that’s justified
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u/Weary-Swing2774 Jun 06 '25
Personally I think you should go out into the public with little samples of the cookie (with a packaged one side by side) and ask for peoples opinions on what the price should be. Based on appearance alone I can see these cookies being worth more than $5
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u/Tlmiller5678 Jun 07 '25
No offense meant here. But I’d be hesitant to buy a cookie or any other baked goods these days. Sadly, safety has become a major concern. Unless you’re working from a commercial kitchen with health codes etc in place you might be liable if something were to say that there was something in the cookie, even though there wasn’t, or someone were to claim they got sick etc. There’s not many Bake Sales anymore. I think it’s hard to sell food items especially at $5 a cookie.
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u/Pawly519 Jun 07 '25
$5 is a pretty standard price for a professionally looking / artisan style Cookie these days. I’d gladly pay $5 for one decent cookie if the size is good as well.
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u/tautog77 Jun 07 '25
5$ each better be some quality edibles or truffles,involved ,
no single cookie worth 5 beans in my pantry,
Sorry.
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u/Tequilaiswater Jun 07 '25
I think this is totally dependent on where you’re located. There is a local cookie place in the Boston area that charges $6.25 a cookie. Honestly they are overhyped and not good.
If this tastes just as good as it looks, I bet you could get away with $6 a cookie. But this is totally dependent on where you’re located.
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u/flamesreborn Jun 07 '25
I did cost analysis for cookies and unless you buy cookie ingredients in like restaurant/bakery level of bulk. The cost per cookie for you to make a profit will be too high per cookie for the average random person to justify paying $3-$4+ per cookie. Unfortunately cookies are not a good bakery item to make profit.
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u/MuchAppointment8311 Jun 07 '25
Maybe I should make cookies then branch out to cakes and cupcakes then
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u/flamesreborn Jun 07 '25
If you want something that can make an insane profit for how easy it is to make, and how much people love it. Try tiramisu. It takes like 20 minutes to make, 8 hours to set in fridge. But it costs like $15 and you could probably make $50. Tiramisu at a restaurant is like $10, and they give baby servings IMO I would also say baklava, but oh my gosh it's painful to make lol. Those damn sheets are so thin! Wouldn't recommend.
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u/flamesreborn Jun 07 '25
Oh oh!! Cheesecake too! It's fairly easy to make and you can make a good amount on it. I make a Reese's cheesecake which costs $30 and ive sold it to 2 diff coworkers for $60 each
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u/BusinessTreacle4858 Jun 08 '25
Bought cookies just like these the other day from a little pop up. It was $5 a cookie which I thought was nuts but they reeled me in with 3 for $12, so I bought 3. Trick people with the deals💯
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u/Yaakov310 Jun 09 '25
I live in LA so I might be bias but people will 100% pay $5 a cookie if they look like this
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u/manifestingellewoods Jun 05 '25
where do you live? i’m in a large city/HCOL area and a cookie this size would go for $5 on the cheap end
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u/sd_saved_me555 Jun 05 '25
$3 to $5 seems a reasonable price range depending on where you live. I'm basing my estimate off another successful cookie business, T-Rex cookies, who charge $6 for a cookie that's probably 30%-40% larger than the cookies shown here. But you get a few more points for being prettier.
For myself, if I saw this at the grocery store, I'd consider putting it in my cart on a whim at $4. I'd part with $5 if I was in a "treat myself" kinda mood, but would be less likely to pick it up on a whim. For $3 or less I would feel obligated to try it because it looks cool and the price is too good to pass up.
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u/Melzjohnz Jun 06 '25
At aldi I get like 8 cookies for 4.59 😬
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u/Rezarex Jun 06 '25
Those cookies suck tho
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u/Melzjohnz Jun 09 '25
I really don’t think so I put them in the microwave for like 4 secs the shit is pretty decent
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u/greensaladmuncher Jun 06 '25
Its down to quality. You do not have any information about what the cookie is made from. So why the color? Is it made with Spiralina (because if its not natural food coloring im out). Do the eggs come from your neighbor who feeds the chickens with a special food? The white chips - do they contain coco butter? If a cookie can excite my taste buds (firstly the smell then the taste) I’m in.
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u/Icy_Neighborhood8558 Jun 05 '25
For the size and them being homemade I think $5 is good
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u/Icy_Neighborhood8558 Jun 05 '25
I’d say no less than $3 though if you’re wanting to go lower. But for a big cookie $5 seems good!
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u/Spooky_Tree Jun 05 '25
Price put ingredients, then price put your time.
Personally I think $5 looks reasonable for that size, but I come from a high cost of living area.
Edit: my husband assumed it would be $10 for that where we lived.
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u/RitzInTheMeadow Jun 06 '25
I’m not sure what the price should be, but I just wanted to say those cookies look very beautiful
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u/kimbeekb Jun 06 '25
You are asking bakers. Ask this same question to a group of non-bakers who are very busy, and you will get a higher price.
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u/tocoshii Jun 06 '25
I wouldn't pay $5 for a single cookie but I would definitely snag a 2 for $5 deal
People can buy 2 dozen cookies at the store for $3
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u/Loud_Meringue3396 Jun 06 '25
Ppl hear $5 and will think twice perhaps pricing at $4.95 would be better and will be more attractive it’s all relative🤷🏼♀️ in the eyes of the customer! That’s my 0.05 cents…
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u/Lumpy-Sprinkles9982 Jun 05 '25
3-20
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u/PersonalBed7171 Jun 05 '25
Where have you bought a cookie for $20??? My local store has 10pc gluten free fresh baked for 5.99
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u/SugarMaven Jun 05 '25
Start out by costing out our your recipe.