Okay so I searched and found nothing to help me here. So maybe someone out there can help me. A freind of a friend asked me to make 30 cookies Pac Man theme for school b day. I live in NY and most places sell cookies by the pound. Can anyone give me some guide lines on pricing? Thank You And Enjoy The rest of Your Week
Audrey

I charge $5.00 per cookie decorated and wrapped in cellophane bags with matching ribbon.Some charge less but honestly ...they are a tremendous amount of work from scratch baking to decorating to packaging so I won't do them for any less!!There is a fantastic cookie decorater on Flickr who sells her cookies by the dozen for $21.00 and I still think she is way under pricing herself but she insists her market can't support higher prices..

A method of calculating the price of a cookie that I've learned from someone here on CC is to add the length and height of the cutter and divide by 2. Then take that number and multiply it by your price-per-inch price.

For example...If a cutter is 3X5 inches and you charge $1/inch, then you'd work it out like this.

3+5=8/2=4X1=4. So the cookie would cost $4 a piece. I've adopted this method from KHalstead and I've found that this was a very fair way of pricing cookies.

HTH

Depending on the design I either sell by the dozen or by the cookie. A dozen unwrapped simple design cookie with max of 3 colors starts at $22.00 a dozen. More elaborate and individually wrapped start at $2.00 each and it goes up from there. I think the general rule is $1.00 an inch. Hope this helps.

Different neighborhoods will support different prices. While some can get $5 a cookie, others can get no higher than $2.

I think everyone has pretty much supplied you with fairly good advice. The price of your cookies really depends on what the market will bear. It also depends on your base cost and how you will sell the cookies.

Are you selling your cookies individually or in bulk?
What is the size of the cookie? 2-3 inches or a jumbo 4-5 inch cookie?
How many cookies can you make with the recipe you are currently using?
If your recipe will make 2 dozen cookies (what ever size), and the base cost of the ingredients is say $8.00 then you are looking at 33 cents per cookie.
If the recipe only makes 1 dozen jumbo cookies, you're looking at 67 center per cookie.

Now you'll need to figure in labor, packaging, overhead and any deliver cost if applicable. You can see where cookies can get expensive. This is why you will see a number of bakers charging upwards of $3.95 to $6.95 per cookie (individually) or $24.95-435.95 per dozen, particularly if they are custom cookies.

The consumer is not only paying for the cookie, but your decorating expertise and if you can't get paid for your talent and time(labor) then it's really not worth it.

Selling individually is great if you are in a location where there is lots of traffic and your product will move; however if you are making custom products sell by the dozen, you will make more money and the cookies are easier to package. There is a great company that has individual cookie boxes (biodegradeable too), I will not spam, just contact me with your email and I'll send their link. I hope this is helpful. If you want to chat more just let me know.

Homebasedbaking,
Could you please PM me that info ? A biodegradeable box sounds great !
Thank you,
kristy