What You'll Learn

How BakeOnyx calculates the true cost of every recipe
Why ingredient cost alone isn't enough
How to read the cost breakdown page

Why This Is the Most Important Article

If you don't understand recipe costing, you could be selling cakes at a loss without knowing it. Most bakers guess their prices — BakeOnyx calculates them precisely.

How Recipe Costing Works

For each recipe, BakeOnyx adds up every ingredient's cost: quantity used × cost per unit.

Example: Your Chocolate Cake uses 200g butter at $0.01/g = $2.00, 300g flour at $0.003/g = $0.90, 4 eggs at $0.35 each = $1.40, and so on. Total ingredient cost: $8.50 for 12 slices = $0.71 per slice.

The Cost Breakdown Page

On any recipe, click to see the cost breakdown. It shows:

Total cost — sum of all ingredients
Cost per serving — total divided by yield
Ingredient percentage chart — which ingredients drive your costs

This is how you find expensive ingredients to optimize.

The Cost Cascade

When you update an ingredient price (e.g., butter goes up 10%), all recipes using that ingredient automatically recalculate. And all products linked to those recipes update too. You never have to manually recalculate.

Common mistake: Recipe cost shows $0. This means your ingredients don't have prices set. Go to Ingredients and add cost per unit for each one.

Why Labour and Overhead Matter

Ingredient cost alone understates what it really costs to make something. A cake that costs $8.50 in ingredients might cost $35 when you add your time and kitchen overhead. Set your labour rate and overhead in Settings → General Settings to see the true cost.

Next Steps

Recipe Costing Deep Dive — full walkthrough with pricing examples
Batch and Portion Costing — for weight-based recipes
Profit & Loss Dashboard — see if you're making money