How Much Should You Sell Candles For? (2026 Pricing Guide)

Candles are the rare product where your costs are easy to add up and your price is hard to pick. A pound of soy wax costs a few dollars, and then you are standing at your table wondering whether your jar is a $12 candle or a $24 one. Somebody two rows over sells at $10, and the gift shop in town sells a brand candle for $44.

This guide works from real numbers checked on one day. It uses live supplier prices for wax, fragrance, wicks and jars, the prices eight small shops charge right now, what national candle brands charge per ounce, and what each way of selling takes off the top. By the end you will have a price for every size you pour and a way to check it.

How Much Should You Sell Candles For?

Price a soy candle in an 8 ounce jar at $16 to $22, which is about four and a half to six and a half times the $3.46 of materials inside it and brackets the $17.50 median that eight small shops charged on September 23, 2026. Every other size follows the same rule: work out what is inside the container, then price at about four to six times your materials.

If you are still sorting out your market application and your booth, the companion guide on how to sell candles at a farmers market covers licensing, insurance and display. This page is only about the number on the tag.

Swipe left on the table to see every size.

Fill weights and wax, fragrance, wick and container prices come from CandleScience's product pages on September 23, 2026, figured at the 10 pound wax bag, 16 ounce fragrance bottle, 100-count wick bag and 12-piece container case. Materials include wax, fragrance oil, wick, container, a warning label from Fillmore Container and a front label, which is our estimate. The 15 ounce row leaves out the vessel because large vessels vary from a few dollars to much more. The 15 ounce row assumes about 15 ounces of candle, since no vessel was priced. The tin prices sit below the 2.5 to 3 times rule in the step-by-step section if a tin is charged the same $1.67 for your labor and $1.50 toward the market fee as a jar. On those numbers a 4 ounce tin costs $5.23 all in, so $9 to $12 covers it 1.7 to 2.3 times, and an 8 ounce tin costs $6.14, so $12 to $16 covers it 2.0 to 2.6 times. At these prices tins work as a lower-margin add-on next to your jars. At the full 2.5 times, a 4 ounce tin would be about $13 and an 8 ounce tin about $15.

Where you land inside each range depends on things a customer can see and smell:

• Move toward the top when your scent is one nobody else at your market pours, your vessel is heavy glass or ceramic, or you already sell out by noon.
• Move toward the middle in your first season, while you learn which scents move and which sit.
• Move toward the bottom only if your market is full of $10 candles and you are selling a plain jar with a simple label.
• Never go under four times materials. Below that, your time, your booth fee and your test burns are coming out of your own pocket.

What Are Small Candle Makers Charging Right Now?

Eight small shops selling 8 to 8.5 ounce soy or soy-blend candles on their own websites charged between $8.74 and $25 on September 23, 2026. The median was $17.50. Four of the eight are farms selling candles next to what they grow, which makes them a closer match for a farmers market vendor than any national brand.

Slide the table sideways for all eight shops.

Every price was read off the shop's own product page on September 23, 2026, and every candle was in stock that day. Homeplace Market had 11 of its 19 scents available. Lain Candle Co.'s 8 ounce candle at $18 was sold out, so it is left out of the table and the median. Linen & Clove is a home decor shop, and the candle it sells is made in small batches by Poured Goods in St. Augustine, Florida. Caruso's site banner says the first candle is $25 and each extra candle is $20.

Two shops from different parts of the range are useful to look at. Abiding Acres Farm's 8 ounce chai latte candle sells for $13 on a farm's own website, which is what a candle priced as a side product looks like. Ten Acres Candles' Cozy Farmhouse sells for $22 from a candle company whose product page explains its North Dakota pour, its soy wax, its cotton wicks and its fragrance oils. From the product pages alone, the biggest visible difference is how much the shop tells you about its candle.

What the spread tells you as a vendor:

• $13 to $15 is the side-product price. It works when candles are a small part of a farm table and you are not trying to live on them.
• $18 to $22 is the candle-shop price. It needs a scent list, a good jar and a label that looks finished.
• $25 and up needs something extra, like frosted glass, a signature scent or a name people already know.

How Do Handmade Prices Compare to Candle Brands?

National candle brands charged between $2.18 and $7.36 per ounce of candle when we checked on September 23, 2026. Four of the eight small shops in the table above charge less per ounce than even the cheapest brand. That gap is your room to move up, not a reason to copy brand prices.

Drag the table left to see burn time and price per hour.

Prices, sizes and burn times read off each brand's own product page on September 23, 2026, at full price. Price per burn hour divides the price by the brand's own burn time claim, which nobody tested for this guide.

Here is how to use those numbers without getting fooled by them:

• Brands set the ceiling, not your price. A customer who buys a $44 candle at a boutique is also paying for the store, the ads and the box. At your table they are paying for you.
• Small candles tend to cost more per ounce. The smallest candle in the table, Homesick's 1.85 ounce mini, runs $5.38 an ounce, and Brooklyn Candle Studio's 4 ounce tin is $5.50 per ounce of tin volume, because the tin, wick and label cost nearly the same as they do on a big jar.
• Within one brand, bigger candles cost less per ounce. Homesick charges $5.38 an ounce for its 1.85 ounce mini, $2.66 for its 7.5 ounce candle and $2.18 for its 13.75 ounce candle, the cheapest per ounce in the table. Across brands the pattern breaks, since Keap's 7.4 ounce candle costs the most per ounce. Inside your own size ladder, though, your largest size should be your best value.

What Does It Cost to Make One 8 Ounce Soy Candle?

One 8 ounce soy candle in a mason jar costs $3.46 in materials when you buy wax in 10 pound bags, $5.39 when you buy everything in the smallest sizes, and $2.90 at 45 pound bulk. That jar holds 7.90 ounces to the fill line, which works out to about 7.3 ounces of wax and 0.6 ounces of fragrance oil.

Swipe the table to see all three buying levels.

Supply prices from CandleScience on September 23, 2026: SimplySoy wax at $4.79 for 1 pound, $28.93 for 10 pounds and $98.14 for 45 pounds; fragrance oil at $3.49 an ounce, $29.35 for 16 ounces and $125.37 for 5 pounds; ECO pretabbed wicks at $2.06 for 12, $9.72 for 100 and $63.18 for 1,000; 8 ounce mason jars at $9.06 for 12. Warning labels from Fillmore Container at $3.50 per 100 and $19.99 per 1,000. The front label is our estimate for a sticker you print yourself. Each line is rounded to the cent, so a column can sit a penny off its total.

Three things jump out of that table:

• Fragrance is as big as the wax. At starter sizes the 0.6 ounces of fragrance costs almost as much as all the wax. That is the first thing to buy in bigger bottles.
• The jar barely moves. Buying jars 7 cases at a time instead of one case saves about 2 cents a candle, so the container is not where your savings come from.
• Your first 10 pound bag pays off fast. Going from 1 pound bags to a 10 pound bag, 16 ounce fragrance bottles and a 100-count wick bag takes $1.93 off every candle. On 50 candles that is $96.50.

Which Wax Should You Price Around?

Soy wax is the cheapest place to start, at $1.32 to $1.46 of wax per 8 ounce jar when you buy 10 pound bags, while coconut apricot wax adds about 55 cents a candle and beeswax adds about $3.63. Your wax choice changes your materials by a few dollars at most, so it matters less to your price than your scent and your jar.

Slide sideways to see every wax.

All from CandleScience's wax pages on September 23, 2026. The beeswax cost uses the same 7.3 ounces for a fair comparison. Most beeswax candles are poured without fragrance, so a full 7.90 ounce beeswax jar is $5.35 of wax.

How that should change your price tag:

• The three straight soy waxes land within 14 cents of each other, so price them the same.
• Coconut waxes cost 18 cents more per jar for the coconut soy blend and 55 cents more for coconut apricot. The priciest brand candle per ounce in the brand table, Keap's at $7.36, is a coconut wax candle, so if you pour coconut, say so on the label.
• Beeswax costs almost four times as much per jar. Price it as its own line, well above your soy candles. The guide to selling beeswax products at a farmers market covers pillars, votives and the rest of a beeswax table.

How Much Does Fragrance Oil Add to the Price?

Fragrance oil adds $0.94 to $2.09 to an 8 ounce candle, depending on whether you buy it by the 5 pound jug or the 1 ounce bottle. It is also the reason people buy: the National Candle Association reports that about three out of four candle buyers call fragrance extremely or very important when they choose a candle.

The math on a 7.9 ounce fill with 0.6 ounces of fragrance:

• 1 ounce sample bottles at $3.49 an ounce: $2.09 a candle.
• 16 ounce bottles at $1.83 an ounce: $1.10 a candle.
• 5 pound jugs at $1.57 an ounce: $0.94 a candle.

Sample bottles are how you find your scents, and they are also the most expensive way to make a candle you sell. If you price a candle off a sample bottle cost and then switch to 16 ounce bottles, your margin goes up by a dollar without you doing anything. If you price off the 16 ounce cost while you are still buying 1 ounce bottles, you are losing that dollar on every candle.

Why Does an 8 Ounce Tin Not Hold 8 Ounces of Candle?

A candle tin sold as 8 ounces holds only five ounces of wax to its fill line, because the size in a container's name is a trade size, not the weight of candle it holds. CandleScience lists its 8 ounce tin at 5.00 ounces of wax, its 8 ounce mason jar at 7.90 ounces, and its 4 ounce tin at 2.70 ounces.

Scroll the table left for the case prices.

Fill weights and case prices from CandleScience's container pages on September 23, 2026.

This matters twice. First, your price. An 8 ounce tin at $16 is $3.20 an ounce of candle, while the mason jar at the same $16 is $2.03 an ounce, so the tin customer is paying more for less without knowing it. Second, your label. The weight on your label should be the weight of the candle, not the size printed on the supplier's box, and your state's weights and measures office can tell you exactly how it wants net weight written. Federal packaging law asks for that net weight in both ounces and grams, next to your business name and city, and the guide to selling homemade candles legally shows a full candle label line by line.

Every candle you sell should also carry a safety label. The National Candle Association says every candle should carry a cautionary label with three rules: burn within sight, keep away from things that can catch fire, and keep away from children. A roll of 100 candle warning labels from Fillmore Container costs $3.50, which is 3.5 cents a candle, so there is no reason to skip it.

What to put on every candle, at minimum:

• The net weight of the candle itself
• The cautionary label with the burn-within-sight rules
• Your business name so a customer can reorder
• The scent name, so the customer who loves it can find it again

How Do You Price a Candle, Step by Step?

Add your materials, your time and your share of booth costs, then multiply that total by 2.5 to 3 and check the answer against what other candle vendors charge. For a soy candle in an 8 ounce mason jar, that walk lands at $16.58 to $19.89, which rounds to an $18 tag. The general version of this formula for every product on your table is in the guide to pricing products for a farmers market; here it is with candle numbers.

• Add up your materials. Wax, fragrance, wick, container and labels for one candle. At 10 pound wax prices, a mason jar candle comes to $3.46.
• Put a number on your time. If a batch of 24 jars takes you 2 hours of hands-on work to melt, pour, wick and label, and you pay yourself $20 an hour, that is $40 across 24 candles, or $1.67 a candle. Your own batch size and hours will differ, so time one batch and use your real numbers.
• Spread your market costs. A $30 market day where you sell 20 candles adds $1.50 to each one. Use your own booth fee and your own average.
• Get your true cost. $3.46 plus $1.67 plus $1.50 is $6.63 for one candle.
• Multiply by 2.5 to 3. $6.63 times 2.5 is $16.58, and times 3 is $19.89. That margin pays for test burns, the candles that crack, and the scents that do not sell.
• Check it against the market. The eight small shops in the table above charge a median of $17.50 for an 8 ounce candle. An $18 tag sits right on it.
• Round to a clean number. $18 is easier to say, easier to make change for and easier to remember than $17.89.

The two numbers vendors skip are the time and the market costs. Materials alone say a $10 candle is a 189% markup and feels fine. Add $1.67 of your time and $1.50 of booth fee, and that same $10 candle leaves you $3.37, before a single test burn. That is why pricing off materials alone keeps candle vendors busy and broke.

Things that should push your multiplier toward 3 rather than 2.5:

• You pour in small batches of 12 or fewer, so your time per candle is higher
• You use wooden wicks, ceramic vessels or anything else that costs more per candle
• You lose more than one candle in 20 to cracks, sinkholes or bad test burns
• You sell mostly at markets with a booth fee over $40 a day

Should You Price by Size, Burn Time, or Vessel?

Price mainly by the ounces of candle inside, then add a dollar or two for a vessel people keep after the wax is gone. Burn time is a good way to explain your price to a customer, but it is a poor way to set it, because nobody can check your number at the table.

What the brand numbers above show about each approach:

• By the ounce: brands ran from $2.18 to $7.36 an ounce, and the eight small shops from $1.09 to $2.94. Your $18 jar works out to $2.25 per labeled ounce, which sits in the middle of the small-shop range.
• By burn time: brands charged from $0.37 to $1.21 per stated burn hour. If your jar candle burns about 40 hours in your own tests, an $18 price is 45 cents an hour, which is cheaper per hour than most brands in the table.
• By vessel: a heavy ceramic tumbler or a jar with a wooden lid is something the customer reuses. That earns a higher price, but only by roughly what the vessel costs you more, plus a little.

A simple way to set up your size ladder is to keep your price per ounce falling as the candle gets bigger. At the suggested prices on this page, a 4 ounce tin at $10 is $3.70 an ounce of candle, an 8 ounce jar at $18 is $2.28 an ounce of candle (or $2.25 per labeled ounce, the basis the shop table uses), and a 15 ounce double wick at $32 is $2.13. That tells a customer the big one is the better deal, which is true, and it is the one that makes you the most per sale.

If you print a burn time on your label, burn-test your own candles in your own container before you do. A burn time you copied from a wax supplier or a brand is a number you cannot back up if a customer asks.

What Do Candles Sell For on Homegrown Right Now?

The 32 candle listings counted on Homegrown on September 27, 2026 come from three shops. Seventeen are $40 for a 15 ounce double-wick soy candle, which works out to $2.67 an ounce, close to the per-ounce price of the priciest small-shop candles in the table above. Twelve are $15 candles that the shop's own website sells as 8 ounce candles, about $1.88 an ounce, and three are $25 candles, two of them labeled 10 ounces, or $2.50 an ounce.

What that tells you if you are thinking about selling candles on Homegrown:

• There is room. Thirty-two candle listings from three shops, out of 2,721 products, means a new candle vendor is not competing with a crowd of other candle shops inside the catalog.
• Big candles are already priced with confidence. $40 for 15 ounces is higher than Homesick's $29.95 for 13.75 ounces. A local vendor does not need to undercut a national brand.
• A size ladder is still missing. Each of the three shops lists its candles on Homegrown at a single price: $15, $25 or $40. A vendor who offers a $10 tin, an $18 jar and a $32 double wick covers three kinds of buyer.
• Most orders will come from your own link. Your storefront is listed on the marketplace, but plan on most candle orders coming from customers you send there yourself.

Does the Price Change at the Market, Online, or Wholesale?

Keep one retail price everywhere a customer can see it, and use a separate wholesale price of about half of retail for shops that resell your candles. A jar candle that is $18 at your table should also be $18 on your storefront, while a shop that buys it to resell would pay you about $9.

Swipe sideways to see every place you can sell.

Fees read on each platform's pricing page on September 23, 2026: Square Free at 2.6% + 15 cents in person, Homegrown at 2.9% + $0.30, Etsy at a $0.20 listing fee, a 6.5% transaction fee and 3% + $0.25 processing. The consignment split is an example; consignment terms are set shop by shop. Which of those places to add first, and in which month, is laid out in seven places to sell candles and when to add each one, since about 35% of the year's candle sales land in the holiday season.

Why one retail price matters for candles in particular:

• Your regulars compare. A customer who pays $18 at your table and sees $15 on your website feels cheated, and one who sees $22 online stops ordering there.
• Shops check. A gift shop that pays you $9 and sells at $18 will not carry your candles long if you sell the same jar for $12 at the market across the street.
• Online is not cheaper to run. Your time to pack and hand off a pickup order is the same as at your table, so there is no reason to price it lower.

What Does Faire Take From a Wholesale Candle Order?

Faire, the wholesale marketplace where gift shops buy from small brands, takes 15% commission on orders that come from its marketplace, plus a one-time $10 fee on a shop's first order, and 0% commission on orders from shops you bring there yourself through a Faire Direct link. Payment processing comes on top of either one, at 1.9% to 3.5% plus 30 cents depending on how fast you want to be paid.

Here is a first wholesale order of 12 candles at $9 each, $108 in all, using Faire's 30-day payout at 2.4% plus 30 cents:

Drag the table sideways to see what you receive.

Rates from Faire's help center page for North American brands, read on September 23, 2026: 15% marketplace commission, a $10 new customer fee on a shop's first marketplace order, 0% on Faire Direct orders, and payment processing of 3.5% + $0.30 for next-day payout, 2.4% + $0.30 for 30-day payout or 1.9% + $0.30 for 60-day payout. The next-day option would make processing on this order $4.08 instead of $2.89.

The first marketplace order leaves you $3.12 a candle after materials and before your time, which is thin. That is normal for wholesale, and it is why the wholesale price has to be built from a retail price that already has room in it. A candle you retail at $14 wholesales at $7, and on a 12-candle first order through Faire you would keep $1.46 a candle over materials, less than the $1.67 of time it took to make it.

Three ways to keep wholesale worth doing:

• Send shops you already know your Faire Direct link so their orders carry no commission.
• Set an opening order minimum big enough that the $10 new customer fee is small next to it.
• Price wholesale at half of a healthy retail price, never half of a price you already cut to compete.

The longer comparison of Faire and selling direct is in our Faire alternative guide for soap and candle vendors, and the guide to wholesale pricing walks through three ways to build a wholesale price sheet for shops.

What Do Selling Fees Take Off an $18 Candle?

Selling fees take between 62 cents and $2.16 off an $18 candle depending on where you sell it, before any monthly plan. Etsy takes the most per candle because it stacks a listing fee, a transaction fee and payment processing. Here is the complete fee stack for every platform, with nothing left out of any row.

Scroll sideways for the rest of the row.

Every fee read off the platform's own page on September 23, 2026: findhomegrown.com/signup, etsy.com/sell, shopify.com/pricing and squareup.com/us/en/pricing. Etsy's page also says you may be charged a one-time shop set-up fee and shows the amount only during setup, so it is not in this table, and its 15% Offsite Ads fee applies only to sales that come from those ads. The 50-candle column adds the monthly plan, billed annually where there is a choice, to 50 times the per-candle cost. The Etsy figures assume no shipping is charged, since Etsy's 6.5% fee also applies to any shipping you charge.

How Do You Keep More of Every Candle Sale Between Markets?

A customer who loved your candle on Saturday and wants two more by Friday should have somewhere to order them that does not take $2.16 of every $18. Homegrown is $10 a month billed annually ($12.50 billed monthly) with no percentage fees beyond standard payment processing, so on an $18 candle your only per-order cost is 82 cents of card processing, and 50 candles a month costs you $51.10 all in, against $108.00 on Etsy.

What that looks like for a candle vendor:

• One link for every scent and size. Your 4 ounce tins, 8 ounce jars and double wicks sit on one storefront with the prices you set on this page, so regulars reorder their scent without messaging you.
• Pickup or local delivery at checkout. Customers choose a pickup time or, inside a radius you set, delivery, so a candle order fits around your market days.
• Sales tax handled. Homegrown's signup page says it calculates and files sales tax for you. That matters for candles, because a candle is not food, so no grocery exemption covers it.
• Payment before you pour. Orders are paid at checkout, so you know how many jars of each scent to pour before you melt a pound of wax.

How it compares to what candle vendors usually try first. Etsy is the right tool if your candles ship to strangers across the country, but on a local pickup order it takes $2.16 of every $18 candle once its listing, transaction and processing fees are added up. Square is excellent at your table at 62 cents a candle, but it is a card reader, not a page where a customer can browse your scents on a Wednesday night. Shopify can do everything, at $29 a month billed yearly before any apps.

What Homegrown does not do, said plainly. Your customer creates a Homegrown account to place a first order, which is one extra step. There is no drop or countdown release feature, so a vendor who sells candles in timed drops will not find that here. Homegrown is built for pickup and local delivery, so if most of your candle orders ship across the country, Etsy or Shopify fits that better. Your storefront is listed on the marketplace, but plan on most orders coming from people you send to your own link. And the 2.9% plus 30 cents of card processing is paid by you, with nothing passed on to the customer.

If your candle prices are set and your regulars keep asking how to order between markets, you can set up a Homegrown storefront and put your whole candle line on one link in an afternoon.

How Should You Price Candles for the Holidays?

Set your holiday candle prices before November and keep them the same through December, because the National Candle Association estimates that about 35% of all candle sales happen in the Christmas and holiday season. That is the stretch where your prices matter most, and changing them mid-season confuses the customers who come back for gifts.

What to do before the season starts:

• Pour your holiday scents early. If you pour a Golden Brands soy wax, CandleScience recommends a two-week cure for the best scent throw, so a candle for a December 1 market should be poured by mid-November. Check your own wax's cure time, since SimplySoy lists at least two days.
• Make a gift set its own product. Your $18 jar and a $10 tin add up to $28. As a boxed set with a ribbon, price it at $30 to $32 so the box and your wrapping time are paid for.
• Add one bigger size. A 15 ounce double wick at $30 to $32 is the candle people buy for a host or a teacher, and at $2.00 to $2.13 an ounce of candle it costs less per ounce than an $18 jar, which is $2.28 an ounce of candle.
• Keep December prices steady. Holiday buyers are shopping for gifts, and a candle that is $18 in November should still be $18 on December 20.

The guide to holiday pricing covers the season as a whole, and the guide to bundle pricing works through how to price a set against the single products inside it.

What Pricing Mistakes Do New Candle Vendors Make?

The most expensive candle pricing mistake is pricing off materials alone, which skips $3.17 of time and booth costs on an 8 ounce jar. A $10 candle priced that way leaves you only $3.37 once those are paid. The others are close behind.

• Pricing a tin by the number on the box. An 8 ounce tin holds 5.00 ounces of candle, so pricing it like an 8 ounce jar overcharges the customer by the ounce and invites a complaint.
• Pricing off sample bottle costs, or off bulk costs you do not pay yet. The difference is about a dollar a candle, in one direction or the other.
• Undercutting the vendor next to you. A $10 jar next to a $20 jar does not look like a deal. It looks like the weaker candle.
• Forgetting the candles you cannot sell. Test burns, cracked jars and the scent nobody liked all come out of your margin, which is why the multiplier is 2.5 to 3 and not 1.5.
• Printing a burn time you never tested. A number from a supplier chart is not a number for your container.
• Never raising prices. Wax, fragrance and jar prices move, and a price you set three years ago is probably a price you are paying for now.

When you do raise prices, do it once, by a real amount, at the start of a season. Moving an 8 ounce jar from $16 to $18 is a 12.5% change, and it lands best when you tell regulars early and plainly. The guide to raising prices without losing regulars has the exact wording, and charm pricing covers whether $18 or $17.99 reads better on a tag.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much should I charge for a 4 oz candle?

Charge $9 to $12 for a 4 ounce candle tin. A 4 ounce tin holds 2.70 ounces of candle to its fill line and costs about $2.06 in materials at small-batch supplier prices, so $9 to $12 is about four and a half to six times materials. Small candles usually cost more per ounce than big ones, so do not price a tin at half of your 8 ounce jar.

What is the profit margin on a homemade candle?

An 8 ounce soy candle that sells for $18 and costs $3.46 in materials has a materials margin of about 81%. Once you add $1.67 of your time and $1.50 of booth fees, the true cost is $6.63 and the margin on that $18 candle is about 63%. That second number is the one to watch.

How much does it cost to make a soy candle?

An 8 ounce soy candle costs $2.90 to $5.39 in materials, depending on how much you buy at once, based on CandleScience supplier prices on September 23, 2026. At the common small-batch level, with a 10 pound bag of wax and 16 ounce fragrance bottles, it is $3.46 for wax, fragrance, wick, jar and labels.

How much should you sell candles for wholesale?

Sell candles wholesale at about half of your retail price, so an $18 candle wholesales at $9. On Faire, a shop's first marketplace order carries 15% commission plus a $10 new customer fee and payment processing, which leaves about $6.58 a candle on a 12-candle $108 order. Orders from shops you bring yourself through Faire Direct carry no commission.

Is it cheaper to sell candles on Etsy or on my own storefront?

For local customers, your own storefront is cheaper per candle, and at $18 a candle the $10 a month plan pays for itself against Etsy's fees once you sell about 8 candles a month. On an $18 candle Etsy takes $2.16 in listing, transaction and processing fees, while a Homegrown storefront takes 82 cents of card processing on a $10 a month plan billed annually. Etsy is the better fit if most of your candles ship to buyers you would never meet.

How long do homemade candles need to cure before you sell them?

Cure time depends on the wax. CandleScience says two weeks for the best scent throw on its Golden Brands soy waxes, at least two days on its SimplySoy wax and one to two days on its coconut apricot wax. If you pour a two-week wax, your holiday candles need to be poured by mid-November for early December markets. Follow your own wax's instructions, and test-burn one before you sell. Selling a candle the day after you pour it usually means a weaker scent when it burns.

Related Reading

These guides pick up where this one stops, from setting up your candle table to the wholesale and holiday questions that come after you have your prices.

• How to Sell Candles at Farmers Markets covers licensing, insurance, equipment and how to set up a candle booth that sells.
• Best Platform to Sell Soap and Candles Online compares the places a candle vendor can take orders, with the fees on each.
• Faire Alternative for Soap and Candle Makers explains when wholesale through Faire is worth it and when selling direct is the better use of your candles.
• How to Sell Beeswax Products at a Farmers Market covers beeswax candles, lip balm and wraps, and why beeswax is priced as its own line.
• Cost Per Bar: Pricing Math for Handmade Soap walks through the same cost-per-unit math for the soap that often sits next to your candles.
• How to Set Wholesale Prices for Your Food Products walks through keystone, cost-plus and full-cost pricing for a wholesale price sheet, and the same math works for candles.

Where Should Your Candle Prices Live When the Market Is Closed?

Your candle prices should live on a page your customers can open any day of the week, not only on the tags at your Saturday table. Once you have set an $18 jar, a $10 tin and a $32 double wick, the next step is making sure a customer who ran out of their favorite scent can reorder it without waiting for your next market.

A storefront link does that. You text it to regulars, print it on a card that goes in every bag, and add it to your social profiles. A customer taps it, picks their scent and size, pays, and picks up at your next market or at a time you set. You see every order before you pour, so you know you need eight lavender and three cedar instead of guessing and melting too much wax.

Start a Homegrown storefront for $10 a month billed annually, put your candle sizes and prices on it, and send the link to the customers who already know your scents. Card processing is 2.9% plus 30 cents per order, with no commission on your candle sales.