Sourdough Bread Cost Calculator
Artisan sourdough loaf, about 454g (1 lb). Ingredient cost for home bakers selling at farmers markets, where a loaf typically retails for $7-10. Prefilled with US average ingredient costs. Edit any quantity or price to match what you actually pay, and the math updates as you type.
How much does it cost to make Sourdough Bread?
About $1.17 of ingredients at 2026 US grocery prices, and 85% of that is flour. A starter costs nothing to keep beyond the flour you feed it, so the $0.15 line covers a refresh rather than a purchase, and salt stays under two cents.
Where the money goes
| Bread flour | 71.8% · $0.84 | |
|---|---|---|
| Whole wheat flour | 13.7% · $0.16 | |
| Sourdough starter refresh | 12.8% · $0.15 | |
| Salt | 1.7% · $0.02 |
What 30 of them return at different prices
| Your price | Food cost % | Over ingredients, each | Over ingredients, 30 |
|---|---|---|---|
| $6.00 | 19.5% | $4.83 | $144.90 |
| $8.00 US average | 14.6% | $6.83 | $204.90 |
| $10.00 | 11.7% | $8.83 | $264.90 |
Ingredients only. Labor, packaging, fuel, and stall or platform fees come out of these figures.
That figure is only the shopping list. It leaves out the electricity of a full oven cycle, the bags and labels a market stall needs, and the 20-plus hours of bulk ferment, shaping, and proof the loaf actually takes. Time is the real input, and it is the one home bakers most often leave out of their price.
A 14.6% food cost looks generous next to the 28-32% a restaurant targets, and it has to be. A restaurant sells a dish and moves on; a market baker heats an oven for batch after batch, drives to a stall, and stands behind it for six hours. The table above is the whole day's return over ingredients, out of which come the stall fee, the packaging, the fuel, and every one of those hours. Two dollars off the loaf is nearly a third of the day gone.
Flour is also the only line worth optimizing. Bought in 50 lb bags instead of 5 lb retail bags it costs roughly 30-40% less per ounce, which takes the loaf under a dollar. Bulk salt and a house starter change nothing at this scale.