Calculate your wholesale price, cost price, and profit per unit
Selling wholesale? Craftybase tracks your costs, margins, and profit on every wholesale order automatically.
Try free for 14 daysTo calculate your wholesale price, add up your total production costs per unit (materials, labor, packaging), divide your overhead and expenses across all units, then apply your desired markup. The standard formula is: Wholesale Price = Cost Price × (1 + Markup %). For handmade and small-batch products, a markup of 50–100% is typical, resulting in wholesale margins of 30–50%. Most retailers expect to buy at 40–60% below the retail price, so your wholesale price should generally be about half of what the product sells for on store shelves.
Cost Price
Sale Price
Profit
A wholesale price is the amount a maker or manufacturer charges when selling products in bulk to a retailer or reseller. It's lower than the retail price because the buyer is purchasing a larger quantity and will add their own markup before selling to end customers.
For handmade sellers, the wholesale price needs to cover your full production costs — materials, labor, and a share of your overhead — plus enough margin for you to actually make money. If your wholesale price is too low, you'll be busy filling orders but barely breaking even. Too high, and retailers won't carry your products.
The formula our calculator uses is straightforward:
Cost Price = (Unit Cost × Units + Overhead + Expenses) ÷ Units
Wholesale Price = Cost Price × (1 + Markup %)
This is a form of absorption pricing — it rolls your fixed costs (overhead and admin expenses) into each unit so every sale contributes to covering the full cost of running your business.
For example, if it costs $2.00 to make each candle, you have $50 in monthly overhead and $25 in expenses, and a retailer orders 100 units at a 100% markup:
Not sure how to calculate your per-unit manufacture cost? Start by figuring out your cost of goods sold (COGS), which includes raw materials, direct labor, and packaging.
The core difference is who's buying. Wholesale customers are businesses purchasing in volume for resale. Retail customers are individuals buying one or two items for personal use.
| Wholesale | Retail | |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer | Retailers, resellers | End consumers |
| Order size | Bulk (10+ units typical) | Individual items |
| Price per unit | Lower | Higher (2–3× wholesale) |
| Typical margin | 30–50% | 50–65% |
| Relationship | Ongoing, contract-based | One-time or repeat |
A common rule of thumb: your retail price should be roughly 2 to 2.5 times your wholesale price. So if your wholesale price is $5.50, a retailer might sell that product for $11 to $14 on their shelves.
Typical wholesale markups vary by product category. These benchmarks can help you set competitive prices:
| Product Type | Typical Wholesale Markup | Retail Multiplier |
|---|---|---|
| Handmade soap & bath products | 50–100% | 2–2.5× |
| Candles | 75–100% | 2–2.5× |
| Handmade jewelry | 100–150% | 2.5–3× |
| Baked goods & food products | 50–75% | 2–2.5× |
| Cosmetics & skincare | 100–200% | 2.5–4× |
These ranges reflect standard industry practice for small-batch and handmade products sold through independent retailers and boutiques. Your specific markup should account for your production volume, material costs, and the retail channels you're targeting.
For a deeper look at setting your retail price, check out our guide on how to price handmade items.
Here's how to work through the calculation manually, or use the calculator above to do it instantly:
Add up every cost that goes into making one unit of your product: raw materials, packaging, labels, and direct labor. This is your cost of goods sold. If you're making handmade soap, for instance, that includes oils, lye, fragrance, colorants, the mold liner, and the time spent making each bar.
Overhead covers the costs of running your business that aren't tied to a specific product: rent, utilities, insurance, equipment depreciation. Divide your total monthly overhead by the number of units you produce to get an overhead cost per unit.
Most wholesale margins for handmade products fall between 30% and 50%. Your margin needs to be large enough to sustain your business but competitive enough that retailers can still mark up your products to a retail price customers will pay.
Add up your cost of goods, overhead per unit, and expenses per unit to get your cost price. Then multiply by your markup factor to get the wholesale price. The calculator at the top of this page does this for you automatically.
These are the mistakes we see makers make most often when setting wholesale prices:
If you're ready to start selling wholesale, our complete guide to selling handmade products wholesale covers everything from finding retailers to negotiating terms.
This calculator is built for small-batch makers and handmade sellers who sell (or want to sell) products wholesale to retailers, boutiques, or gift shops.
It's especially useful for:
If you're looking for software that automatically tracks your costs, margins, and profit on every wholesale order, try Craftybase free for 14 days.