The Bee Bench › Honey Pricing

🏷️ Honey Pricing

Most small beekeepers price off what the stand down the road charges and never work out whether it covers anything. Here's what a jar actually costs you before you decide.

The jar

Jar size (oz net honey)

Jar + lid each ($)

Label each ($)

Your honey

What your bees cost you a year ($)

Pounds of honey you get for that

Hours of your time per year

What you charge

Your price for this jar ($)

Value your time at ($/hr)

Include your time in the cost?

Annual cost defaults to the running cost of two hives from the costs page. Crop is what you actually bottle, not what the hive made.

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Honey in the jar

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Packaging

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Total cost per jar

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Break-even price

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What the same jar makes by channel

Jar	Net weight	Typical raw local price, 2026
Muth / hex 4 oz	4 oz	$5 – $7
Half pound	8 oz	$7 – $10
Pound jar	16 oz	$12 – $17
Quart	48 oz	$32 – $45
Half gallon	96 oz	$58 – $80
Cut comb / chunk	12 oz	$16 – $24

Don't price against the grocery store. The $6 bear on a supermarket shelf is a blend of imported honey from several countries, and you cannot make it for that. You're selling something different — raw, local, single-apiary, from someone the buyer can find. Price it as that, and tell people which it is. Beekeepers who undercut the shelf lose money and drag the local market down with them.

Wholesale isn't half a sale, it's a different business. A shop that takes your honey wants somewhere between 50% and 60% of retail, consistent supply, and consistent labels. That works if you have volume and it's how you move a big crop. It does not work as a way to shift the last twenty jars — you'll set a price you can't undo, and your farm-stand customers will notice.

The comb and the wax carry better margins than the honey. Cut comb sells for roughly double the price per ounce with no extracting, no bottling and no jars. Wax turns into lip balm and candles at several times its raw value. If you're trying to make the numbers work on a small operation, that's usually where the room is — not in charging another dollar a jar.

What it costs to run → Label requirements → Wax products →