BakeOnyx costs a recipe by adding three things — ingredient cost + labour + overhead — then dividing by yield to get your true cost per item. Price from that number (not ingredients alone) and you'll never underprice again. Here's exactly how the cost flows from ingredients to profit.

The Cost Flow: Ingredient to Profit

This is the single most important concept in BakeOnyx. Once you understand this flow, you'll never underprice a product again.

Step 1: Ingredient Costs

Every ingredient has a cost per unit. For example:

Flour: $0.002 per gram ($2 per kg)
Butter: $0.005 per gram ($5 per kg)
Eggs: $0.35 each
Sugar: $0.0015 per gram ($1.50 per kg)
Cocoa powder: $0.008 per gram ($8 per kg)

Step 2: Recipe Cost (Ingredients Only)

Your Chocolate Cake recipe uses:

500g flour = $1.00
250g butter = $1.25
4 eggs = $1.40
200g sugar = $0.30
100g cocoa = $0.80

Total ingredient cost: $4.75 for 12 slices = $0.40 per slice

Step 3: The TRUE Cost (What Most Bakers Miss)

Ingredients are only part of the picture. You also need to account for:

Labour: You spend 45 minutes on this cake. At $20/hour, that's $15
Overhead: Your kitchen costs $3,000/month. If you make ~200 items/month, that's about $15 per item

TRUE cost: $4.75 + $15 + $15 = $34.75 for 12 slices = $2.90 per slice

Warning: If you only count ingredient costs ($4.75) and sell the whole cake for $8, you're actually losing $26.75 on every cake. This is the #1 mistake new bakers make.

Step 4: Setting a Profitable Price

With a true cost of $34.75, here's what different markups look like:

40% markup: Sell at $57.92 → Profit of $23.17 per cake
50% markup: Sell at $69.50 → Profit of $34.75 per cake
Per slice at $5.50: Revenue $66 → Profit of $31.25 (47% margin)

What BakeOnyx Does Automatically

Calculates ingredient costs from your prices — you never do math by hand
Adds labour and overhead from your General Settings
Shows cost per serving on every recipe
Suggests sell prices based on your markup target
Auto-updates when prices change — if butter goes up 20%, all recipe costs update instantly

Tip: Set your labour rate and overhead costs in Settings → General Settings during onboarding. Even rough estimates are better than $0 — you can refine later.

Key Reports to Monitor

P&L Dashboard: "Am I making money overall?"
Food Cost Analysis: "Which products have the best/worst margins?"
Pricing Optimizer (Scale plan): AI suggests price adjustments based on your cost data

Next Steps

Understanding Recipe Costing — the cost breakdown page explained
Batch and Portion Costing — for weight-based recipes
Profit & Loss Dashboard — see your complete financial picture