How much to charge for brownies
One 9 x 13 inch pan of King Arthur's fudge brownies has $12.27 of ingredients. Cut into 24 squares, wrap each one, count 25 minutes of work at an example $15 an hour and add 10% overhead, and each brownie costs $1.18. At a 40% margin that is $1.96 a brownie, or $47.14 for the pan. How you cut the pan changes the answer more than the recipe does, so the second table cuts it three ways.
What one pan costs
The recipe says it makes about two dozen brownies cut into 2-inch squares in a 9 x 13 inch pan, with 12 minutes of hands-on time and 28 to 32 minutes in the oven. The optional espresso powder is left out. Flour, sugar, butter and eggs use the September 2026 U.S. averages from the BLS. Cocoa, chips, vanilla and the rest are my own placeholder prices, marked with a star.
| Ingredient | Used | Package | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Large eggs | 4 | $2.27 / 1 | $0.76 |
| Dutch-process cocoa powder | 106 | $6.99 / 8 * | $3.27 |
| Table salt | 1 | $1.29 / 26 * | $0.01 |
| Baking powder | 1 | $2.49 / 8.1 * | $0.04 |
| Vanilla extract | 1 | $5.99 / 2 * | $1.50 |
| Butter | 227 | $3.96 / 1 | $1.98 |
| Granulated sugar | 447 | $1.02 / 1 | $1.00 |
| All-purpose flour | 180 | $0.55 / 1 | $0.22 |
| Semisweet chocolate chips | 340 | $3.49 / 12 * | $3.49 |
| Ingredients for the batch | $12.27 | ||
Two lines make up more than half the ingredient bill: the chocolate chips (28.4%) and the cocoa (26.6%). The 2 cups of chips are the same quantity as in a batch of chocolate chip cookies, so a price change there moves both recipes. Open this pan in the calculator and put in your own cocoa and chip prices.
The same pan cut three ways
The pan costs the same however you slice it. A smaller square means more of them to sell, but each one needs its own wrapper, which is 30 cents in this example. Price per brownie and per pan below use a 40% margin.
| Cut | Brownies | Cost each | Price each | Pan total | Open it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 x 6 cuts, 2 inch squares (the recipe) | 24 | $1.18 | $1.96 | $47.14 | Calculator |
| 4 x 4 cuts, about 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 inches | 16 | $1.60 | $2.67 | $42.74 | Calculator |
| 3 x 4 cuts, about 3 x 3 1/4 inches | 12 | $2.03 | $3.38 | $40.54 | Calculator |
Cut sizes are my arithmetic on a 9 x 13 inch pan; the recipe itself only gives the 2-inch cut. Edge pieces and a corner that sticks lower your real count, so price on the number you sell.
Cost floor and a round price
The calculated price per brownie is the lowest price that still pays you. At a table you probably want a price you can say and make change for. For the 24-cut, $1.96 rounds to $2, which adds a few cents of margin. The 12-cut at $3.38 sits between $3 and $4, and $3 would be under the floor, so that one goes up to $4. Enter the round price in the calculator's margin to see what you keep.
If you also sell whole pans, the wrappers go away and a pan box takes their place, so enter that packaging instead of 30 cents times 24. A pan is a bigger purchase, so you may price it a little under the sum of the single brownies. The calculator shows what that discount costs you.
Walnuts, frosting or a swirl add a row each. Put them in as ingredients and the per-brownie cost updates. For a recipe with frosting, the cupcake cost per unit page shows how fast it adds up. Brownies also go into a mixed holiday box with cookies: see how much to charge for a Christmas cookie box. Whether and how you may sell from home depends on your state's cottage food rules.
For margin versus markup, see the markup vs margin page. Pricing cookies instead? Start at cookies per dozen.