Heart of Herbs — Business & Pricing Tool
Heart of Herbs Herbal School
Where the plants meet the people

Business & Pricing Tool

Herbalists and aromatherapists rarely have just one income stream — there's the work you do with people in consultation, and the work you make for them on the bench. This tool prices both honestly. Choose your role, then switch between Consultations and Products. Every figure builds your price from real costs up: your time, your tools and dispensary, office or clinic space, insurance, mileage, taxes, and a margin so the practice sustains you.

1

Your practice & volume

/ yr
2

Your time per consultation

Count the invisible hours too — intake review, formula or protocol design, charting, and the follow-up message. They're skilled labor and belong in the fee.

Total hours per consultation0
3

Direct costs per consultation

What each appointment costs you — keep it out of your wage.

mi
$/mi
$
$
$
$
$
Direct cost per consultation$0
4

Annual business overhead

The cost of keeping the practice open for a year. The tool spreads it across your annual consultations. (In Products mode, overhead is handled per unit instead.)

Total annual overhead$0
Overhead carried by each consultation$0
1

Batch & yield

Price a product the way it's actually made — by the batch, then divided across finished units.

2

Ingredient cost per batch

What the raw materials for one whole batch cost you.

$
$
$
$
Ingredients per batch$0
Costing essential oils: at 20 drops/mL, a 15 mL bottle ≈ 300 drops. Divide the bottle's price by 300 to get cost-per-drop, then multiply by drops used across the batch.
3

Packaging per unit

Per finished unit — these add up far more than makers expect.

$
$
$
$
Packaging per unit$0
4

Labor, overhead & markup

Your hands-on time, a share of overhead, and the markups that carry your profit. Your hourly wage and card fee come from the panel below.

min
$
×
×
5

Your pay & taxes

The heart of sustainable pricing: pay yourself a true wage and reserve what the tax bill will claim.

$/hr
%
%
%
$
Recommended price
$0
Where each dollar goes

Your year at this rate

Gross revenue$0
Your pay (before tax)$0
Business expenses$0
Set aside for taxes$0
Take-home after taxes$0
Suggested retail price
$0
per unit · sold direct to customer
$0wholesale / unit
$0your cost / unit
0%retail margin
What's inside the retail price

Per batch & per unit

Cost to make one unit$0
Profit per unit (retail, after tax)$0
Batch cost to produce$0
Batch revenue (all sold retail)$0
Batch profit (after tax)$0
How to read this. In Consultations, "take-home after taxes" is what's truly yours once expenses are paid and taxes reserved — divide by your hours for your real wage. In Products, the retail margin is the share of each sale that becomes gross profit; handcrafted goods commonly target a retail price around four times cost. If you sell wholesale to shops, they'll roughly double your wholesale price, so your wholesale must already cover cost plus profit.

Notes & assumptions. Figures are US-based. The 72.5¢/mile rate is the 2026 IRS business standard mileage rate; self-employment tax is 15.3% of net earnings before income tax, so a 25–30% set-aside is a common planning estimate. Consultation pricing treats overhead and direct costs as deductible expenses and your pay and cushion as taxable; product profit shown after tax uses the same rate. This is an educational planning tool — not tax, legal, accounting, or insurance advice. Confirm product liability coverage and any scope-of-practice rules for your area with qualified professionals.
Heart of Herbs Herbal School · Where the plants meet the people.