Understanding Recipe Costing
How Batchbase calculates recipe costs and how to use the cost breakdown to improve margins.
How Costs Are Calculated
Recipe costs are calculated from the purchase prices set on each raw material. Batchbase multiplies the ingoing weight of each ingredient by its cost-per-gram, then sums all ingredients to produce the total ingredient cost for the batch.
Costs update in real time as you adjust quantities or ingredient prices — there's no manual recalculation required.
Per-Batch vs Per-Unit Cost
The recipe cost view shows both the total batch cost and the cost per unit. The per-unit cost is the batch cost divided by the batch yield (in units).
For example, if a batch of 50 muffins costs $18.40 in ingredients, the per-unit ingredient cost is $0.37. This figure is your cost of goods sold (COGS) per item before packaging and labour.
The Cost Breakdown View
Click Cost Breakdown on any recipe to see a table showing each ingredient's cost and percentage share of the total batch cost.
This view helps you identify which ingredients are driving your COGS. If a single ingredient accounts for more than 40% of cost, it's worth reviewing supplier pricing or exploring alternatives.
Keeping Costs Current
Raw material costs change over time. When a supplier updates their pricing, edit the purchase price on the raw material record — all recipes using that ingredient will reflect the new cost immediately.
Batchbase does not lock historic recipe costs, so the cost shown is always based on the current raw material prices. If you need to preserve a historical cost snapshot, export the recipe card PDF before updating prices.