What a candle actually costs you to make, what Etsy takes out of the sale, and what you would have to charge to keep the margin you want. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for, and the numbers stay in your browser.
Enter what you paid and how much of it goes into one candle. If you buy 5 kg of wax for 45 and pour 180 g, that is 45 paid, 5000 pack size, 180 used.
Etsy's fees change and differ by country, so every one of these is editable. Check yours in Shop Manager and correct the defaults if they are out.
Nothing here is sent anywhere. The calculation runs in your browser and nothing is stored.
There is no trick to it. The reason people get it wrong is not the maths, it is the lines they leave out.
This page is genuinely enough for one candle. What it cannot do is keep up.
A wax delivery arrives at a new price and every candle using it now costs something else. With one material in twenty recipes, that is twenty numbers that just went stale in a spreadsheet nobody will reopen.
Costing and stock are the same arithmetic seen from two ends. Masto Control consumes the oldest batch first at what that batch actually cost, so the figure is what you paid rather than what you meant to pay.
The same candle sold at a market and posted from an Etsy order carries different packaging and a different commission. One average margin hides which of them is paying you.
One note on the tool above and the product below: the rate and the minutes you just typed in are exactly how Masto Control prices your time too - an hourly rate per role or operation on one side, minutes per unit on the product card on the other. The difference is that it keeps the material side current from what you actually paid, instead of a figure you retype every few months.
Try it on one product →For a 180 ml soy candle in a glass jar, materials and packaging usually land somewhere between 2.50 and 6.00 in euro or pounds, depending on the fragrance load, the jar and whether you post it in a box. The range is wide because the jar and the fragrance oil do most of the moving, which is exactly why a general figure is no use and your own numbers are.
Etsy charges a listing fee, a transaction fee on the order total including the shipping you charge, and a payment processing fee that is a percentage plus a fixed amount and varies by country. Offsite Ads, when they apply, take a further cut. Rates change and differ by country, so the calculator lets you edit every one of them rather than assuming.
Yes. If you do not, you are working for free and calling it profit. Put in the minutes a candle actually takes across pouring, curing, labelling and packing, and an hourly rate you would accept from someone else. Then judge the margin on top of that, not on top of materials alone.
Because it does. Each delivery arrives at its own price, and the candles you pour from it cost what that delivery cost, not what the last one did. One material sitting in twenty recipes means one price change quietly moves twenty product costs at once, which is the point where a spreadsheet stops keeping up.
A common rule of thumb is to charge two and a half to three times your materials cost, but treat it as a starting point rather than an answer. What matters is the figure left after materials, packaging, your time and the platform's cut, and whether that figure is worth your afternoon.
For one candle, no. A calculator like this one is enough. It becomes worth automating when you have dozens of products sharing the same materials, prices that move with every delivery, and stock you are trying to keep straight at the same time.
Free tool: every fee on one order, and what you keep.
Etsy's real cut, and the price that hits your margin.
The formula, worked through on a 180 ml candle.
Materials, recipes and batches for a workshop.
What happens to stock when an Etsy order lands.