The short answer
Cost a whole bake day, not one loaf: flour, salt, add-ins, bags and labels, a share of your oven, and your own hours. Divide by the number of loaves, then divide by (1 − your profit margin). In the worked example below, a country loaf costs $8.35 to make in a batch of 8 and sells for about $11.93 (round it to $12) at a 30% margin.
Step 1: Cost one bake day
Sourdough is made in batches, and most of the cost is time spread across two days. So write down everything that goes into one bake day of the bread you are pricing:
- Flour, salt and add-ins. Weigh what one loaf uses. A 900 g country loaf at 75% hydration has about 510 g of flour in it, including the flour in the levain. Seeds, cheese, olives and dried fruit can cost more than the flour, so count them per loaf.
- Starter. Your starter is just flour and water, and the flour is already in the total above. Count the flour you discard when you feed it, if you throw it away.
- Bags, labels and ties. A bread bag, a label and a care card often cost 30 to 60 cents a loaf.
- Oven and energy. Bread bakes hot and long. A simple way is to add a fixed amount per loaf, or 10% to 20% of your ingredient cost.
- Your time. Feeding the starter, mixing, folds, shaping, baking, bagging, cleanup and messages with customers. The waiting hours don’t count, but the hands-on minutes do.
Step 2: Turn the cost into a price
price per loaf = (bake day cost ÷ loaves) ÷ (1 − margin)
Margin is the share of the price that is profit, which is why the formula divides. Adding 30% on top of cost only gives you about a 23% margin.
| Item | Bake day | Per loaf |
|---|---|---|
| Flour, 4.1 kg at $0.0024 per gram | $9.84 | $1.23 |
| Salt | $0.16 | $0.02 |
| Bags, labels and care cards | $3.60 | $0.45 |
| Oven and energy | $3.20 | $0.40 |
| Your time, 2.5 hands-on hours × $20 | $50.00 | $6.25 |
| Total cost | $66.80 | $8.35 |
| Price at a 30% margin ($8.35 ÷ 0.70) | $11.93 |
Most bakers round to a tidy number, such as $12 a loaf. These numbers are made up to show the math. Your flour, your speed and your local market decide your real price.
Step 3: Batch size changes everything
Mixing, folding and cleanup take about the same time for 4 loaves as for 8, so your time per loaf drops fast as the batch grows, until your oven becomes the limit. Here is the same loaf with different batch sizes:
| Loaves per bake day | Hands-on hours | Time per loaf | Cost per loaf | Price at 30% margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 2 | $10.00 | $12.10 | $17.29 |
| 8 | 2.5 | $6.25 | $8.35 | $11.93 |
| 12 | 3.25 | $5.42 | $7.52 | $10.74 |
That is why many micro-bakeries take pre-orders with a cut-off day: a full oven is the easiest way to make each loaf pay. If you only ever bake 3 or 4 loaves, either charge more or find a way to bake more at once.
Price specialty loaves separately
Seeded, cheese, olive, cinnamon raisin and chocolate loaves cost more in add-ins and often take longer to shape. Cost each one once and add the difference to your country loaf price. A $2 to $4 premium is common, but let your own numbers decide.
Common sourdough pricing mistakes
- Pricing against the grocery store. A supermarket loaf is made in a factory. Yours is naturally leavened over two days by one person.
- Counting only flour. Flour is cheap. Your time and the bags are where the money goes.
- Baking too few loaves. Small batches make every loaf expensive. Use pre-orders to fill the oven.
- Selling starter for free without thinking. A jar of starter is a nice add-on product with its own price, care card and label.
Try it with your own numbers: the recipe cost calculator works out your flour and add-in cost per loaf. List the package size, price and the grams each loaf uses, and set the servings to 1.