Pricing
How to price brownies and slices: tray yield, cut size and cafe wholesale
Cost the whole brownie tray and divide by the cut: a 33 x 23 cm tray at 12, 24 and 48 pieces, priced in five currencies, plus cafe wholesale per piece and per tray.
the ibakepro team ·
Price brownies and slices by the tray, then divide by the cut. A 33 x 23 cm (13 x 9 inch) tray of fudgy brownies costs about A$14 in ingredients in Australia and about A$38 once your time, packaging and overhead are in. Cut into 12 cafe-size squares, that is A$5.69 a piece at a 45% margin. Cut into 24 it is A$3.15, and into 48 bites A$1.85. Smaller pieces cost more per gram, because every cut adds a bag and a minute, so the bite tray earns more than the cafe tray only if you charge for it. For cafes, sell the 12-cut at about 60% of that retail price, or better, sell the tray uncut.
Cost the tray, not the piece
Everything in a brownie happens at tray level: one mix, one bake, one cool, one cut. Work out what the tray costs and the piece price follows.
- Ingredients. For the worked tray: 250 g butter, 300 g dark chocolate, 350 g sugar, 4 eggs, 150 g flour and 40 g of cocoa. Chocolate and butter are about 70% of the bill.
- Labour. Melting, mixing, lining, loading and unloading take about 25 minutes a tray when you make four trays at once. Cutting and trimming take 6 minutes for 12 pieces, 9 for 24 and 14 for 48, because a clean bite cut needs a hot knife wiped between every pass.
- Packaging. A bag or sleeve and label per piece for retail, here 0.15 each. For a cafe, one tray box per tray instead.
- Overhead. 12% of materials and labour, the same as the cake pricing calculator.
- Trim. A clean cafe edge loses about a centimetre on every side. Bake for the trimmed size, and sell the offcuts as bags of brownie bits or use them in a sundae or trifle; do not count them as pieces.
Price per piece = (tray ingredients + packaging + hours per tray x hourly rate) x 1.12 / (1 - target margin) / pieces per tray
What a tray yields by cut size
A 33 x 23 cm tray trimmed to about 31 x 21 cm:
| Cut | Grid | Piece size | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 pieces | 4 x 3 | about 7.5 x 7 cm (3 x 2.75 in) | Cafe counter, single serve |
| 24 pieces | 6 x 4 | about 5 x 5 cm (2 x 2 in) | Market stall, gift boxes |
| 48 pieces | 8 x 6 | about 4 x 3.5 cm (1.5 x 1.4 in) | Catering platters, dessert tables |
A deeper tray gives taller pieces, not more of them. If you switch to a 20 cm (8 inch) square tin for small orders, cost it as its own product: the same mixing and washing up spread over 9 or 16 pieces makes each one cost much more.
The worked tray in five currencies
Retail prices are per piece at a 45% margin, including a bag and label on every piece. Hourly rates are the same example rates used across our pricing guides.
| Market | Ingredients per tray | Hourly rate | 12 pieces | 24 pieces | 48 pieces |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | US$8.94 | US$25 | US$4.02 | US$2.27 | US$1.37 |
| United Kingdom | £8.47 | £18 | £3.32 | £1.89 | £1.16 |
| Canada | C$12.49 | C$30 | C$5.06 | C$2.81 | C$1.66 |
| New Zealand | NZ$15.09 | NZ$32 | NZ$5.67 | NZ$3.12 | NZ$1.83 |
| Australia (example ingredients) | A$13.67 | A$35 | A$5.69 | A$3.15 | A$1.85 |
Ingredient prices: US Bureau of Labor Statistics city averages for August 2026 (flour US$0.548 per lb, sugar US$1.024 per lb, butter US$4.021 per lb, eggs US$2.272 a dozen); ONS shopping prices for August 2026 (self-raising flour £1.01 for 1.5 kg, butter £2.26 for 250 g, white sugar £1.15 a kg, free-range eggs £3.93 for 12); Statistics Canada table 18-10-0245-01 for July 2026 (flour C$5.36 for 2.5 kg, butter C$5.92 for 454 g, sugar C$2.64 for 2 kg, eggs C$4.95 a dozen); Stats NZ selected price indexes for August 2026 (flour NZ$2.06 for 1.5 kg, butter NZ$7.70 for 500 g, sugar NZ$3.30 for 1.5 kg, eggs NZ$8.60 a dozen). Australia has no current official average retail price series for these, so the A$ figure uses example prices (flour A$1.60 a kg, butter A$12 a kg, sugar A$1.80 a kg, eggs 60c each).
Dark baking chocolate is an example input in every market (US$14, £12, C$20, NZ$22 and A$22 a kg) and cocoa is an example 0.80 a tray. The official series only track eating chocolate: ONS has a plain chocolate bar at £2.44 for 150 g (£16.27 a kg) and Stats NZ a supermarket block at NZ$6.20 for 250 g (NZ$24.80 a kg). Couverture callets bought by the 5 kg bag usually cost less per kg than either, so price from your own invoice.
Cut size is a pricing decision
Going from 12 pieces to 48 adds A$5.40 of bags and 8 minutes of cutting to the Australian tray. The tray's cost goes from A$37.58 to A$48.85, and the 48 bites at A$1.85 bring in A$88.82 against A$68.33 for 12 squares. That only holds if you price bites per piece. Selling bites at a quarter of the cafe-square price, because they are a quarter of the size, gives away the extra packaging and cutting.
If you sell more than one size, cost each as its own product from the same tray, and keep the price per gram rising as the piece gets smaller.
Layered slices cost more time than brownies
Caramel slice, lemon slice, rocky road and anything with a base, a filling and a topping go through two or three bake-and-set stages. Each stage is another round of handling, chilling space and washing up, so a layered slice often takes twice the hands-on time of a brownie tray for the same cut. Cost each layer as a component (base, filling, topping) and add them up, rather than pricing a slice like a brownie with a few cents on top. Set toppings such as chocolate or icing also need a warm knife for a clean cut; time it once and add it.
Cafe wholesale: per piece or per tray
A cafe needs to roughly double what it pays you, which is why wholesale sits at 50 to 70% of your retail price; the reasoning is in wholesale pricing, price lists and terms. For wholesale the worked tray is made eight at a time (about 15 minutes a tray before cutting), packed in one tray box at an example 0.60 and with no bags.
| Market | Cut 12, wholesale per piece at 60% | Your margin | Uncut tray at 60% | Your margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | US$2.41 | 29% | US$28.91 | 39% |
| United Kingdom | £1.99 | 28% | £23.92 | 36% |
| Canada | C$3.03 | 27% | C$36.40 | 37% |
| New Zealand | NZ$3.40 | 26% | NZ$40.84 | 35% |
| Australia | A$3.42 | 28% | A$41.00 | 37% |
The uncut tray is the same 60% of retail, but you skip six minutes of cutting and the cafe cuts to its own counter size. At 50% of retail the pre-cut piece leaves you 12 to 15%, which is gone after one delivery; at 70% it leaves 37 to 39%.
What makes brownie wholesale work:
- Sell by the tray and let the cafe cut, or charge a cutting fee if it wants pieces.
- Deliver with something else. A tray or two of brownies rarely pays for a delivery on its own. Add them to a bread or pastry run, or set a minimum order; what to charge for delivery shows how to cost a drop.
- Shelf life is your advantage. Brownies and most slices keep for several days, so a cafe can take two or three trays a week rather than daily drops. Agree how many days it keeps them on the counter and put your storage advice on the delivery docket.
- No returns. Price the tray as sold. A cafe that can send back unsold pieces has no reason to order carefully.
For the wider account setup, see how to sell wholesale to cafes and stockists.
Costing and selling brownies in ibakepro
ibakepro, bakery management software for bakeries of every size from home kitchens to wholesale operations, costs the tray from what you paid for butter, chocolate and eggs, and recosts every cut size when a supplier price changes. Each layer of a slice can be its own costed component. Sell the 12, 24 and 48 cuts and mixed boxes through your storefront, and on the Business plan give cafes a private trade area with their own per-tray and per-piece prices, quantity breaks and minimum quantities through wholesale ordering. See recipe costing.