You can create the most STUNNING products in the world, have customers lined up around the block before your doors even open, and still be booked, busy, and broke.

I said what I said.

You can have a popular product and still be completely UNPROFITABLE.

You may have a signature product that your business is known for. A product that customers rave about, that they come back for time and time again. A product that sells out every single day.

And yet, it could be costing your business a FORTUNE every single time you make it.

And THAT is one of the biggest problems in the baking industry.

After spending more than 12 years building my own bakery and the last eight years coaching and consulting other bakers, I can say this with complete confidence:

Most bakeries do not fail because their products aren’t good enough.

They fail because the owner never learned the MATH behind those products.

They know how to make something people love. They know how to market it. They know how to sell it. But they have no idea whether that product is actually making the business any money.

Make it make sense? Because selling more of something that isn’t profitable doesn’t make you successful. It just makes you BROKE faster.

Your bestseller might be lying to you

I had a student back in the day whose business revolved around brownies.

They were a STAPLE in her bakery.

Until she did the actual math behind her products.

Inside my business masterclass, Passion To Profit, we spend an entire two weeks on pricing alone because it’s one of the biggest pain points in the baking industry.

And up until this point in the course, she had NO IDEA what her costs even were.

So she did something really brave.

She took an entire week off from custom orders so she could sit down and run ALL the numbers. And she quickly realized that on almost every single brownie flavor she offered, she was losing money.

Immediately, she raised her brownie prices by one dollar.

Her standard batch was 24 brownies. So that ONE-DOLLAR adjustment meant an additional $24 in revenue every single batch she sold.

While she may have lost out on revenue during the week it took her to step away and re-evaluate her numbers, in the end, it saved her SO MUCH money because she finally understood what those products were actually costing her.

So often, business owners use the excuse:

“I’m so busy.”

“I have no staff.”

“Who has time to sit here and implement all this stuff into a spreadsheet or pricing tool?”

And to that I say...

Go on, sis. Keep losing money. I don’t know what to tell you.

Because the HARD TRUTH is, you either make the time and do what’s required of you as a business owner, or you don’t.

But it’s your choice.

The customer sees the final product. YOU have to see the whole cost.

Here’s the thing, friend...

The customer sees the final presentation. BUT it’s on YOU to price every hidden piece that created it. And if you don’t know those numbers down to the penny, then you’re ignoring the whole story.

I had a chocolate salted caramel cupcake in my bakery.

Would you believe me if I told you this single cupcake had FIVE different recipes that needed to be included to bring ONE product to life?

I don’t know, maybe you would. Maybe you wouldn’t.

But I bring this up because a single product is rarely just one simple recipe.

Most bakery products are BUILT from several different components that have to be accounted for if you want to know whether the finished product is actually profitable.

A cupcake is NOT just a cupcake.

A dessert cup is not just a dessert cup.

A custom cake is not just a cake. (Contrary to popular belief)

That means the first step to pricing correctly is learning how to organize what actually goes INTO the product.

Let’s take my chocolate salted caramel cupcake as an example.

For this cupcake, I have three recipes for my base and fillings:

• Chocolate cupcake recipe
• Salted caramel filling recipe
• Chocolate ganache recipe

Then I have two recipes for toppings and garnishes:

• Chocolate buttercream recipe that specifically uses my chocolate ganache recipe as an ingredient
• Caramel drizzle recipe for the final garnish

But that’s not the WHOLE story.

I also have to account for the cupcake liner the cupcake gets baked in.

Potentially a single cupcake box.

A box insert or liner.

And then...Oh, WAIT. That’s STILL not all. Now I have to account for labor.

The time required to bake, fill, frost, decorate, and package the cupcake.

Overhead. The fixed costs required to keep my business running.

And PROFIT. The actual money the business gets to keep.

Those “little” costs aren’t so little

Your flour, sugar, butter, chocolate curls, fresh fruit, sprinkles, jars, containers, boxes, cupcake liners, cups, cake boards, labels, and packaging ALL matter.

Even the small things add up.

Decorations and packaging have to be included just as much as the ingredients themselves.

Pretty boxes.

Cute little cups.

The spoon you tie onto the side of a dessert jar.

Cupcake liners.

Boxes.

Cake boards.

Labels and stickers.

The beautiful ribbon you think “elevates the presentation.”

Even the cake-cutting card you throw into the box.

They may seem small individually.

But those costs add up FAST.

And decorations aren’t just about “making it cute” either.

Decorations can include:

• Mixing custom colors
• Hand piping
• Lettering or writing
• Creating a custom sprinkle mix
• Meticulously adding shimmer pearls with tweezers
• Adding gold accents
• Painting or dipping macarons
• Chocolate pieces
• Adding fresh or sugar flowers
• Making intricate fondant pieces- sometimes WEEKS ahead
• Making custom toppers
• Airbrushing
• And so much more

Every design choice affects cost, time, or BOTH.

And SPOILER ALERT: That’s what’s costing you.

By looking at your recipe as COMPONENTS versus an instruction manual, you move from “pricing from vibes” to building a price from the inside out based on actual costs.

We all love BEAUTIFUL products.

But if you’re booked all year long and your bank account is empty, you are essentially running a nonprofit organization where everybody gets paid EXCEPT you.

So instead of focusing only on creating the most beautiful products, let’s shift that focus to building PROFITABLE products.

The price has to cover the WHOLE story.

Not just the part everybody else sees.

How to figure out what your bakery products REALLY cost

Profit loves CLARITY. And so do I.

So if we’re focusing on creating PROFITABLE products, we need to figure out what our products are REALLY costing us.

We’re gonna do this using my CAKE Framework.

Easy enough to remember, right?

C - Catalog your pantry

This is where we keep track of ALL our ingredients and supplies.

Not just the obvious ingredients.

Everything the business purchases that gets used to create or package the finished product.

A - Assemble your recipe

This is exactly like it sounds.

We’re putting together your recipes using the pantry items you’ve already cataloged.

And remember, one PRODUCT may require multiple RECIPES.

That chocolate salted caramel cupcake wasn’t one recipe.

It was FIVE.

K - Know your baked yield

This is where guessing has to STOP.

Instead of saying:

“One batch of buttercream frosts around 36 cupcakes.”

Actually TEST it. Make the recipe.

Use EVERYTHING you would normally use to bring this recipe to life- your piping bags, the tips you use, the portions, and containers. And document EXACTLY how many finished units that recipe produces.

Because “around 36” and “actually 27” are two VERY different numbers when you’re trying to figure out whether you’re making money.

E - Establish your product

This is where you determine exactly HOW MUCH of every recipe, component, and supply goes into ONE finished product.

Let’s say we’re making dessert cups using my chocolate salted caramel recipe.

What goes into a dessert cup? Generally, you’ve got a couple layers of cake separated by filling, frosting, or both.

Normally we’re gonna start out with cake that was baked in a pan, right?

So we have to know what size pan that is.

Then maybe that cake gets cut into circles with cookie cutters, sliced, crumbled, scooped, or stamped into smaller pieces.

So maybe we have:

1. Chocolate cake recipe
2. Baked as one 1/4-sheet cake
3. Cut into 2-inch circles
4. Produces 24 usable cake rounds
5. Each dessert cup uses 2 cake rounds plus its frosting and filling
6. One batch produces 12 finished dessert cups
7. Then we calculate the cost of the cup, jar, lid, spoon, label, and every other supply needed to finish it

Maybe you understand that process already. But you’ve never actually taken the time to DOCUMENT it. Either way, the result is the same:

Your business is making decisions without receipts.

Cute products don’t get to live rent-free on your menu

I’ll be the first one to say it, friend... Cute products don’t get to live rent-free on your menu.

The WHOLE point of running a business is to make money.

I don’t care if you have the prettiest product in your state. If it isn’t making you money, something has to change. Period.

I promise you, once you actually sit down and do the proper math, everything will shift for you.

You’ll stop looking at your menu like a collection of things you know how to make. And you’ll start looking at it like a list of DECISIONS that can either MAKE or COST your business money.

Every product on your menu has a job. Some products bring in a TON of revenue without requiring an insane amount of time or labor. Some are easy to produce in larger quantities. Some make great add-ons. Some attract new customers and lead them toward higher-value purchases. And some products are pretty to look at...But they will bleed you dry.

YUP.

I said it.

They take up space on your menu.

They require special ingredients.

They require extra TIME and labor.

They slow down production.

They require complicated packaging.

And while they may bring in business and get attention online, that doesn’t automatically mean they’re making you money.

Popular does NOT automatically mean profitable

This is where business owners get caught up.

We assume that because a product is popular, it must be good for the business.

But your bestseller might be lying to you.

It might be the product everyone asks for.

The one that sells out first.

The one customers tag you in.

The one that gets the most likes every time you post it.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, it may also require the most components, the most decorating time, the most expensive packaging, and leave you with the smallest return.

I started my bakery with the intention of only doing custom cakes.

I’m talking literal works of art. I wanted a bakery like The Cake Boss.

I wanted to serve celebrities and high-end clientele and make these giant, elaborate, over-the-top cakes. Until I realized custom cakes were my LEAST PROFITABLE item.

They required a SH*T ton of labor. I didn’t have the capacity to mass-produce them. And the margins weren’t great.

The very thing I originally thought my bakery would revolve around ended up not being the thing that made the most financial sense for the business.

And I’m telling you that because a popular product indicates that customers WANT the product.

That does not mean your business can AFFORD to keep selling it the way you currently are.

That is why every product has to earn a spot on your menu.

I don’t care if you like it.

I don’t care if your customers like it.

I don’t care if your thousands of followers on Instagram like it.

If it isn’t bringing your business PROFIT, then we need to figure out WHY.

Maybe it needs a price increase.

Maybe the packaging needs to change.

Maybe the process needs to become more efficient.

Maybe the customization needs to be limited.

Maybe it needs a minimum order.

And some products might need to GO.

Is that a bit harsh? Maybe.

But would you rather spend your time, talent, and energy pouring into creating pretty products that cost your business a fortune to make?

OR... Would you rather focus on products that create massive revenue AND profit for your business?

Every product has to earn its place

For every product on your menu, I want you to ask yourself:

• What does one finished product actually cost me?
• How much hands-on labor does it require?
• Can my team reproduce it consistently?
• Does the customer value justify the complexity?
• Can I simplify the decoration, packaging, or production process?
• Does this product deserve the space, time, and energy it is taking from the business?

Some products are NO-BRAINERS.

Some may still generate a profit but need a few adjustments to the packaging or process.

And some products may just need to go.

That’s the truth of running a business.

Oftentimes, we make things that WE LOVE.

Not necessarily because our customers love or want them, but because we have some sort of emotional attachment to them. And it’s HARD to let go.

We get attached to the things we create.

We remember when we first introduced them.

We remember ALL the compliments.

We see the likes, the comments, and the customer requests.

And we convince ourselves that removing something popular- or something WE love- would be a terrible business decision.

But keeping a financially draining product simply because people like it, or because YOU like it, is just an expensive-ass business decision.

You have to be FERAL about your numbers

You have to be FERAL about your numbers.

Because serious profit sometimes requires pruning beautiful things that no longer make sense for the business.

A product that sells for $45 and leaves the business with enough money to cover its REAL costs is far more valuable than a cheaper product you have to mass-produce just to scrape together a tiny return.

Just because you sell MORE of something does not equate to success.

Sometimes more sales just mean more ingredients.

More packaging.

More labor.

More production time.

And more opportunities to lose money.

The goal is not to build the biggest menu on the planet.

The goal is to build a menu your business can actually afford to sell.

And when you’ve documented every component, every portion, every piece of packaging, and every minute of labor, you are no longer guessing about what belongs on your menu.

You have EVIDENCE. And that evidence changes the way you run your business.

You stop asking strangers online:

“What should I charge for this?”

You stop looking at your competitors and assuming their prices must be correct.

You stop apologizing every time somebody questions your pricing.

Because now? You have RECEIPTS.

You know what went into the product.

You know what it required from the business.

And you know the price has to cover the WHOLE story.

Want to know what your products are ACTUALLY costing you?

And friend, if you’re reading all this thinking:

“Okay Janelle... but I do NOT want to build another damn spreadsheet.”

I get it.

That is exactly why we created Costli.

Costli was built specifically for bakers and food business owners who want to understand what their products REALLY cost without trying to manually keep twelve different spreadsheets updated every time the price of butter changes.

You can organize your ingredients and supplies, build your recipes from the individual components, account for your packaging, labor, and overhead, and start seeing what the products on your menu are actually doing for your business.

Because the product that gets the most likes is not automatically the product making you the most money.

And “everybody loves it” isn’t enough information to run a profitable business.

You need to know the MATH behind it.

You need the receipts.

And once you have them? You can finally make decisions based on what’s actually good for the business- not what simply LOOKS successful from the outside.

LEARN MORE ABOUT COSTLI