Pricing your produce, step by step
Interactive lesson: a price with a foundation — cost per unit, what your hour is worth, the market, a price for each selling route, break-even and changing a price.
Free sample Chapters 1 and 2 (8 steps) are free. The full lesson comes with the Pricing your produce module. Already bought? Unlock
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The whole lesson as text
1. Floor, range and ceiling
A good price lies between three limits: cost, the market and value.
- Floor: cost — What does one unit cost you? The answer comes from your cost records and the production cost calculator.
- Range: the market — What do others charge for the same quality? The answer comes from visiting markets, shops and adverts.
- Ceiling: value — What is the customer ready to pay for what they get? Ask customers and watch what sells out first.
- When they don't match — Cost above the market: you are producing more expensively than you need to, selling to the wrong customers, or the product needs a different offer. Cost far below the market: you have probably forgotten something. Check twice.
Why: In the countryside a price is often set by the neighbour's, minus a bit. That is how home-grown food stays below cost for years, while the homesteader works for nothing and pays extra for the feed.
- Don't compare with the cheapest in the supermarket, but with the closest in quality.
- Review your prices once a year, before the season.
2. The cost of an egg: 20 hens
The cost per unit is all the costs of an enterprise for a year, divided by the number of units.
- Feed and small items — 20 hens eat about 900 kg of feed: 900 × 0.45 = £405. Grit, bedding and small items about another £60.
- Replacing the flock — A third of the flock is replaced every year: 7 pullets × 25 = £175.
- Depreciation and packaging — An £800 hen house spread over 15 years: £53 a year. Eggs sell by the dozen, so egg boxes: 367 × 0.15 = £55.
- Cost without labour — With the vet, £778 in all. For 4,400 eggs: 778 ÷ 4,400 = £0.18 an egg, about £2.10 a dozen.
Why: Adding up the feed isn't enough. Replacement stock, packaging, selling and depreciation of the hen house are real costs, they just don't show every day. Prices in the example are rough, only to practise the sum.
- Divide by the units you actually sell or eat: if 10 % of the eggs are broken or given away, divide by 3,960, not 4,400.
- Your own grain and better range lower the feed cost.
3. What your hour is worth · Locked
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4. What the market pays · Locked
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5. From cost to price · Locked
Buy the Pricing your produce module and you get the PDF to download and print, plus lifetime access to this interactive lesson: all 6 chapters, 24 steps.
6. Break-even, packs and price changes · Locked
Buy the Pricing your produce module and you get the PDF to download and print, plus lifetime access to this interactive lesson: all 6 chapters, 24 steps.