Price Your Sourdough Without Guessing

Let me tell you the story that changed how I price bread, because it'll do more for you than any formula.

When I started selling, I spent forever trying to land on a number. The grocery store was selling bread for two dollars a loaf. I knew better than to compete with that, my bread was far better, but when I settled on five dollars, it still didn't sit right. I knew it was worth more. I was just scared my customers couldn't afford it.

One market day, my daughter Peyton was working the table with me. I kept noticing her stuffing folded bills into my shirt pocket and my pants pocket while I rang people up. We sold out in about thirty minutes. When I finally sat down and emptied my pockets, they were full of ten dollar bills. I asked her what she'd been charging. Ten dollars. Twice my price. She had no sales training. She just repeated the things I said at home about how good the bread was, and people paid double without blinking.

The next week, all my prices changed. My bread was the same. My pricing had been the problem the whole time.

• • •

Why "what feels right" is the worst pricing method

When you price by gut, you're really pricing by fear, fear that the number is too high and people will walk. So you shave it down to feel safe. But a low price doesn't just cost you a dollar a loaf. It tells the customer your bread is ordinary, and it leaves money on the table that they were happy to spend with you anyway. They'll spend it somewhere at that market. Might as well be on your bread.

The fix is to stop guessing and build your price from two honest numbers: what a loaf costs you to make, and what it's worth to the person buying it.

Step one: find the true cost of a loaf

You can't price for profit until you know what a loaf actually costs you. And it's more than flour. Add up all of it.

1. Ingredients Flour, water, salt, and your starter for a plain sourdough. Add butter, eggs, and milk for enriched loaves. Price it per loaf, not per bag.
2. Packaging The bag, the label, the tag, the twine. It adds up faster than you'd think.
3. Energy Your oven running for hours, every bake.
4. Market costs Booth fees, the drive, any permits, spread across the loaves you bring.
5. Your time The one everybody skips. A two-day sourdough is hours of your life. If you don't pay yourself, you don't have a business, you have an expensive hobby.

Add it all up and that's your true cost per loaf. That number is your floor.

You never price below it, ever. A lot of bakers are stunned the first time they run this, because they've been selling below cost without knowing it.

If you want quality flour to compare costs honestly, the milling and ingredient guides over at King Arthur Baking are a solid reference for what good ingredients actually run.

Step two: price for what it's worth, not just what it costs

Cost sets your floor. Value sets your price. Your sourdough is a two-day, hand-shaped, naturally fermented loaf made by a person, not a machine. That is worth real money, and the customer at a farmers market already knows it. They're there because they want the good stuff.

Look at what other bread vendors at your market charge. Look at what a comparable loaf costs at a good bakery. Then price at the top of that range, not the bottom, because yours is handmade and theirs might not be.

Step three: hold your price with a card and your mouth shut

Two things keep you from caving on price at the table. First, a printed price card on every product, so nobody has to ask, and you never have to stammer out a number you're not sure of. Second, your story. When a customer knows the loaf took two days and the starter is older than your truck, ten dollars stops feeling like a lot and starts feeling fair. Say it once, with confidence, and let the bread do the rest.

Run your numbers this week

Pick your best loaf. Add up what it truly costs you, all five buckets, time included. Set that as your floor. Then price at the top of what your market will bear, print a card, and practice saying your price out loud without flinching. You'll be amazed how many people pay it without a second thought, just like they did for Peyton.

If you want the calculator and the full step-by-step, it's all inside From Oven to Market. And every recipe in the Recipe Pantry is built on baker's percentages, so the formula is right there when you bake.

Perfection is not required. Progress is.