Bakery Overhead Calculator
Your overhead per hour: oven power, bills and equipment, divided by the hours you bake. Free, no signup.
1. Your kitchen
Where you bake, and the ovens you bake in.
Your ovens
Uses about 2 kWh an hour.
It’s on your power bill. The US average is about 18¢.
2. Your bills
What keeps the kitchen running. Leave a row empty to skip it.
Insurance
$Permit or license
$Phone and internet
$For the business%Only the part that is for the business.
Software and website
$Equipment
$LastsyearsA mixer, an oven, a proofer: spread over the years it lasts.
3. Your hours
Overhead is shared across every hour you work.
Prep, mixing, baking, decorating and packing. Not selling or driving.
Including heating up.
So far $0.00 a month
See howWhat to count as overhead
The running costs of your kitchen, shared across every hour you bake.
- 1
Oven power or gas
Worked out from the hours your oven is on. A home electric oven uses about 2 kWh an hour at 350°F; a home gas oven about 0.11 therms an hour. Use your own figures if you know them.
- 2
Rent and utilities
A rented or shared kitchen, or your shop. At home, only the extra your baking adds, which the oven line above already covers.
- 3
Insurance, permits and licenses
Yearly costs, spread over twelve months: liability insurance, your cottage food permit, a food handler card.
- 4
Software, phone and internet
The part used for the business. A phone you also use at home might be a quarter business.
- 5
Equipment
A mixer, an oven, a proofer: the price spread over the years it lasts. A $450 mixer that lasts five years is $7.50 a month.
Not overhead
- Ingredients and packaging: they are in each recipe’s own cost.
- Your own pay: that is labor, priced per hour on its own.
- Market booth fees and card fees: they belong to the day or the sale that caused them.
Questions bakers ask
What is overhead for a bakery?
The costs of running your kitchen that no single recipe uses up: oven power, rent, insurance, permits, software and equipment. Your recipes carry a share of it for each hour of work, so your prices cover it.
How do I calculate overhead per hour?
Add up your overhead for a normal month, then divide by the hours you bake in that month. $83 of overhead over 40 hours of baking is $2.08 an hour, so a recipe with an hour and a half of work carries $3.12 of overhead.
How much does it cost to run an oven for an hour?
A home electric oven uses about 2 kWh an hour at 350°F, so at 18¢ a kWh it costs about 36¢ an hour. A home gas oven uses about 0.11 therms an hour, about 17¢ at $1.50 a therm. Your bill has your own prices.
What overhead should a home baker use?
Work out yours rather than borrowing a number. Two examples: a home baker with an electric oven, insurance, a permit, software, a quarter of her phone bill and a $450 mixer, 22 oven hours and 40 hours of baking a month at 18¢ a kWh, comes to about $2.09 an hour. A rented kitchen at $1,200 a month plus $350 of utilities, over 120 hours, comes to about $12.92.
Should overhead be per hour or a percentage?
Per hour of work is fairest for bakers: a two-hour cake uses the kitchen four times as long as a thirty-minute batch of cookies, so it carries four times the overhead. A flat percentage charges cheap, quick bakes too little and slow ones too much.
Does the number change?
Yes: a new bill, a busier season or a piece of equipment paid off all move it. In BakeProfit it is worked out again from your orders and your expenses each month, and you are told when it moves.
Keep going
- Recipe Cost CalculatorIngredients, your time and your overhead per hour, for one recipe.
- Bakery Profit CalculatorWhat a month of sales leaves you after every cost.
- Farmers Market PlannerHow much to bring and what you need to sell to cover the booth.
- What you really earn per hourYour pay, separate from overhead, and how to price both in.
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