Recipe costing for florists: how to price a bouquet without losing money
“How much should I charge for this bouquet?” is the question a florist asks a hundred times a day — and the one that costs the most money to get wrong. Pricing by eye, “like everyone else” or “whatever feels right” is the number one reason a flower shop that sells a lot earns little. The tool that fixes it comes from the kitchen: recipe costing (in Spanish, escandallo). In this article we explain what it is, how to cost a bouquet step by step and how to set a price without losing money.
Would you rather do it than read about it? Here’s the bouquet price calculator: enter the flowers and your labour and it gives you cost, price and margin. Free and with no sign-up.
What recipe costing is (and why you need it)
Recipe costing comes from the restaurant trade: it’s working out the real cost of a dish — or, in your case, a bouquet — by adding up everything that goes into it. It’s nothing more than answering with numbers “how much does it cost me to make this?” before deciding “how much do I charge?”.
Without costing, you set prices by looking at the competition or rounding. With costing, you set prices based on your cost, which is the only thing that guarantees you make money. The difference between the two is often the difference between running a flower shop and running an expensive hobby.
The four costs of a bouquet
Everyone counts the first one. The other three are the ones people forget — and the ones that eat the margin:
- Flowers and foliage. How many stems of each, at the price you buy them. The most obvious cost.
- Sundries. Paper, cellophane, ribbon, water, the vase or pot, the card. Pennies per bouquet that, multiplied by hundreds of bouquets, add up to real money.
- Waste. The flowers you buy and don’t sell are paid for by this bouquet too. If you throw away 15–20%, that percentage gets added to the cost. We go into it in the article on flower waste.
- Your labour. The time it takes to make the bouquet is the most expensive cost and the one nobody writes down. Ten minutes of your work have a cost; giving them away is working for free.
Almost everyone counts the flowers and forgets the sundries, the waste and their own time. Those three “invisible” costs can be 30–40% of a bouquet’s real cost. A bouquet that seems to leave a good margin when you only count the flowers can be making a loss when you count everything. That’s why costing is done in full or not at all.
How to cost a bouquet, step by step
Let’s take a simple example. Any counter bouquet:
| Item | Calculation | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 12 roses | 12 × €0.60 | €7.20 |
| Foliage and filler | €1.50 | |
| Sundries (paper, ribbon, card) | €1.20 | |
| Materials cost | €9.90 | |
| Waste (15%) | 9.90 × 0.15 | €1.49 |
| Your labour (10 min) | €2.50 | |
| Total cost | €13.89 |
There’s the number that really matters: making that bouquet costs you almost €14, not the €7.20 of the flowers. If you were selling it for €18 thinking you made €11, you were really making just over €4. That’s the trap of only counting the flowers.
From cost to price: the margin
Once you know the cost, the price is a decision, not a guess. The usual approach in floristry is to apply a multiplier to the flower cost (the classic “times three” or “times four”), but it’s safer to work from the total cost and decide what margin you want.
With the example above (total cost €13.89):
- At €20 → you’re left with a margin of just over €6.
- At €25 → close to €11.
The quick multiplier works for a busy counter, but it’s worth checking now and then that your “times three” still covers your real cost. When flower prices rise or your waste changes, your usual multiplier can fall short without you noticing.
You’re not going to do this calculation by hand every time you make a bouquet. The idea is to do it once for each standard bouquet (the €20 one, the €30 one, the bridal one…), save it as a recipe and reuse it. When the price of a flower changes, you update that flower’s cost and all your recipes recalculate themselves. That’s where software saves you hours and removes the blindness.
Why this counts double for weddings
At the counter, a price that’s slightly too low costs you a few euros. At a wedding, it costs you hundreds. Events are quoted with large line items months in advance, so badly done costing gets multiplied.
That’s why costing is the basis of a good event quote: each line item (bridal bouquet, centrepieces, arch) is a recipe with its cost, and only then do you know how much you make before saying yes. We explain it in the article on getting paid for weddings and events without the drama.
How Evoflor handles it
Costing on paper works, but it goes out of date as soon as flower prices rise. In Evoflor, recipes with cost and margin do the costing for you: you define what goes into each bouquet, the system works out the total cost (flowers, with whatever waste you tell it) and shows you the margin at each selling price. When the price of a flower changes, every recipe that uses it recalculates itself — no more old prices eating your margin. It’s on every plan, from €59/month, because pricing properly is the first thing that makes a flower shop profitable.
Frequently asked questions
What is bouquet recipe costing? It’s working out what it costs you to make that bouquet, adding up the flowers, the sundries, the waste and your labour. It’s the basis for setting a price that leaves you a profit instead of guessing.
How do I price a bouquet of flowers? First work out its total cost (not just the flowers). Then decide the margin you want and add it. The classic “multiply the flowers by three or four” is a shortcut, but it’s worth checking that the multiplier really covers your full cost.
Should I include my own labour in the cost? Yes, always. The time you spend making the bouquet is a real cost; if you don’t count it, you’re giving away your labour and your margin is fictitious. It’s the most common mistake and the most expensive one.
Should I include waste in the price? Yes. The flowers you buy and don’t sell have to be paid for by the ones you do sell. Adding a waste percentage to the cost (for example 15%) makes your prices reflect reality. We go into it in the article on flower waste.
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