How much to charge for macarons, per piece and per dozen
The ingredients for 24 filled macarons come to $4.65, about $0.19 each. The two hours it takes and the shells that fail are the larger costs. With every shell good, a macaron costs $1.72 and sells for $2.87 at a 40% margin, or $37.70 for a box of 12 with the box included. If only half the shells come out right, the same batch needs $5.51 a macaron, or $69.46 a dozen. The tables below show both.
What one batch costs
The recipe is King Arthur's French macarons: 75 g of egg whites, 75 g of granulated sugar, 85 g of almond flour, 100 g of confectioners' sugar and a quarter teaspoon of cream of tartar. It makes about 2 dozen filled macarons, which is 48 shells. King Arthur links a French buttercream for the filling but does not print it, so the filling here is my estimate: 113 g of butter, 100 g of sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla, using the yolks of the same 3 eggs. Eggs, butter and granulated sugar use the September 2026 BLS averages; every other price is my placeholder, marked with a star. Almond flour is the one to check at your own store, since it is the most expensive line. Packaging is $0.12 a macaron for a cup liner or a sleeve, and the batch has 120 minutes of labor. King Arthur gives 40 minutes of hands-on work and 15 to 20 minutes in the oven, and lists a total of 2 hours, so the 120 is that total rounded for piping, filling and boxing.
| Ingredient | Used | Package | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Large eggs (whites for shells, yolks for filling) | 3 | $2.27 / 1 | $0.57 |
| Granulated sugar (shells) | 75 | $1.02 / 1 | $0.17 |
| Cream of tartar | 0.25 | $4.49 / 20 * | $0.06 |
| Confectioners' sugar | 100 | $2.49 / 2 * | $0.27 |
| Almond flour | 85 | $9.99 / 16 * | $1.87 |
| Butter (my buttercream) | 113 | $3.96 / 1 | $0.99 |
| Granulated sugar (my buttercream) | 100 | $1.02 / 1 | $0.22 |
| Vanilla extract | 1 | $5.99 / 2 * | $0.50 |
| Ingredients for the batch | $4.65 | ||
Labor is $30.00 of the batch at an example $15 an hour, against $4.65 of ingredients. Open the batch in the calculator and change the labor minutes first. Resting the shells for 30 minutes and maturing the filled macarons in the refrigerator for 24 to 48 hours, which King Arthur's page lists separately, need little of your time, so they are not counted.
What failed shells do to the price
Macarons crack, go hollow, lose their feet or bake unevenly, and a pair that does not match cannot go in a box. You pay for the whole batch and sell only the good ones, so the cost of a good macaron is the batch cost divided by the number that worked. I have no sourced failure rate, so the three rows are my arithmetic: all 24 good, 18 good (75%) and 12 good (50%). The batch cost stays the same in every row, $41.28 with labor and overhead, and only the count changes. Selling by the box needs a box and a liner, so the last column adds a box for a dozen at $1.80, also a placeholder.
| Good shells | Macarons to sell | Cost per macaron | Price per macaron | Box of 12 | Open it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All shells good100% | 24 | $1.72 | $2.87 | $37.70 | Calculator |
| 3 in 4 good75% | 18 | $2.25 | $3.75 | $48.29 | Calculator |
| 1 in 2 good50% | 12 | $3.31 | $5.51 | $69.46 | Calculator |
Going from 24 good macarons to 12 nearly doubles the cost of each one, from $1.72 to $3.31. The 75% row sits at $2.25. Keep a note of how many shells you throw away over your first five batches, then put the real share in the calculator's yield box. The oven runs hot or cool, humidity changes how the batter behaves, and your own count is worth more than any figure on this page.
What other sellers charge
The price list at thepricer.org collects advertised prices. It puts U.S. bakeries at about $2 to $5 a macaron, or $25 to $55 a dozen, and quotes the boxes below. These are advertised prices that thepricer.org sampled, and the per-piece column is my division of their box price.
| Seller | Box | Box price | Per macaron |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pastreez | 12-piece assortment | $42.00 | $3.50 |
| Pastreez | 20-piece gift assortment | $59.00 | $2.95 |
| Ladurée | 12-piece Intemporel box | $52.00 | $4.33 |
| Ladurée | 20-piece Intemporel box | $80.00 | $4.00 |
A box of 12 from Pastreez is $42 and from Ladurée $52. Your box of 12 is $37.70 when every shell is good, below both, and $48.29 at 75% good. A shop with a storefront, packaging design and a name has costs and customers you may not have yet, so treat them as a point of comparison. At home you can charge for your actual cost and time, and raise the price as your good-shell rate improves or the orders fill up.
Related pages: decorated sugar cookies are priced by decorating minutes in the same way, and the Christmas cookie box shows a box counted once across several recipes. The markup vs margin page explains why the 40% here is a margin. Check your state's cottage food rules before selling filled macarons, since a buttercream with butter and egg yolks is the kind of filling some states treat differently.