How Many Candle Sizes Should a New Candle Brand Launch?

What a size actually commits you to

New brands almost always decide the size question the wrong way round. They picture the shelf — a small one, a medium one, a large one, maybe a travel tin — and then work out what each will cost. Done in that order, four sizes feels free, because nothing about a dropdown menu costs money. Run it the other way and the arithmetic arrives first.

A new size commits you to five things, and only the first is obvious. A vessel pack, because CSI vessels are sold in packs of 10 or 12 and you cannot buy three. A wick test, because the burn behaviour of a candle depends on its diameter and a wick that is right in a 70 g votive is not automatically right in a 180 g ceramic jar. A photograph set, because the size has to be shown next to something. A row of stock in every scent you sell, because a size that only exists in one fragrance looks like an accident. And a line on every count, every reorder and every packing list for as long as it exists.

That last one is the quiet cost. Three sizes across three scents is nine stock lines to count, nine to photograph, nine to keep in depth, nine to remember when the festive rush starts. Four sizes across five scents is twenty. The number of sizes is a multiplier on everything you will do for the next two years, so it deserves the same scrutiny as the wax grade.

Scents multiply the same grid from the other direction, and that is a separate decision with its own arithmetic. This page holds the scent count fixed at three and asks only what the sizes cost.

What each fill size costs to make

The table below costs one candle at each of six CSI fill sizes. Wax is Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 at ₹507.40 a kilo. Fragrance is British Rose at ₹3.07 a gram, dosed at 8% of wax weight — the starting load most soy container makers use, and comfortably inside the 10% maximum the CSI 464 page states. Wicks are Eco Candle Wicks Thin (C1) at ₹5.90 up to the 180 g jar and Cotton Braided Wicks Ready Made at ₹12.00 on the apothecary jar, whose page gives an outer rim of about 10 cm and which therefore sits in the territory the Cotton Braided page describes as large-diameter candles exceeding 8 cm. Each candle carries one Candle Wick Stickers at ₹2.50.

Two numbers in that table should change how you think about your range. The first is the gap between the 135 g tin at ₹206.79 and the 150 g lidded glass at ₹215.73: ₹8.93 separates them, for 15 g more wax and a completely different look. Two sizes that cost within ₹8.93 of each other and land at the same retail price are not two sizes. They are one size and a distraction.

The second is the wick. Moving from C1 at ₹5.90 to C2 at ₹9.44 costs ₹3.54 a candle, which is nothing next to the vessel — so never choose a wick to save money. Choose the smallest wick that gives you a full melt pool at a sensible depth in that specific diameter, and find it by burning candles. CSI does not publish a wick-size chart by jar diameter, and no honest supplier can, because the wax, the load and the room all move the answer.

Why cost per gram runs backwards

Three of the five lines in a candle do not care how big it is. The wick costs ₹5.90 whether it sits in 70 g or 180 g of wax. The sticker costs ₹2.50. And the vessel — the largest line of all at every size below 500 g — is priced by what it looks like, not by what it holds. So as the fill drops, the fixed costs get spread over fewer grams, and the cost per gram climbs.

This is why a 70 g votive should never be positioned as your cheap candle. At ₹92.96 of materials it costs about ₹1.33 a gram against ₹1.44 for the 150 g jar, so selling it at a third of the big candle’s price gives away margin for nothing. Small sizes earn their place as samplers, as wedding and festive favours where the quantity is the point, and as the second item in a gift box — all of which are priced on the occasion, not on the gram.

The price ladder each size can carry

The commercial job of a size range is to give a buyer a reason to spend more or less without leaving your brand. That only works if the sizes land on visibly different prices. The table below takes each material cost and marks it up three times, rounded up to the next fifty rupees, purely to show the shape of the ladder. These retail prices are illustrative. They are not a recommendation, they take no account of your own packaging, courier, labour or platform costs, and your own pricing should start from your full cost, not from ours.

Read the third and fourth rows together. At three times materials the 135 g tin and the 150 g glass both land on ₹650.00. A customer choosing between two candles at the same price is choosing on looks, which is fine — but you are now holding two vessel packs, two wick tests and two stock rows to serve one price point. If you want both a tin and a glass in the range, put them at clearly different fills so they sit at clearly different prices.

Indian price points matter here too. Gifting budgets cluster: a wedding favour that has to be bought 200 times is a very different number from a Diwali corporate box or a self-purchase from an Instagram store. A two-size range that offers one candle around the price of a sampler and one around the price of a proper gift covers far more of that ground than four sizes bunched between two adjacent prices.

What adding one more size costs before you sell anything

Here is the number that settles most size arguments. To add a size properly you need enough stock to show it in every scent you sell — ten units each across three scents — plus a wick test of at least six candles, which is two wick options burned in three jars each. That is 36 candles at the new size before a single one is sold. The table prices exactly that, rounding vessels up to whole packs.

A two-size launch on the votive and the lidded glass therefore commits about ₹11,617.69 in materials across three scents. Adding the 500 g apothecary as a third size takes that to about ₹33,337.21 — an increase of ₹21,719.52 for a size that, at an illustrative ₹1,850.00, most new brands sell in single figures a month. That is the entire argument in two numbers.

The two sizes to launch with, and the trigger for the third

The hero size should be the one your brand is described by: big enough to feel like a real candle, priced where your customer buys gifts, and in a vessel that photographs well and survives a courier. On CSI stock the Clear Glass Jar with Golden Lid fits that job at ₹94.40 each — its page gives a 150 g fill, an 8 cm height and hot-pour safe to 85°C — and Black Glass Jar with Black Lid at ₹107.00 is the same fill in a different look if your brand is darker. Materials land at ₹215.73 a candle.

The second size should do a job the hero cannot. A 70 g votive at ₹31.86 each is a sampler a customer will try, a favour a wedding will order 200 of, and the second item in a gift box that lifts an order value without lifting your work much. Materials land at ₹92.96. Between them, those two sizes cover a sampler price and a gift price with six stock lines across three scents and a launch commitment of about ₹11,617.69.

If tins suit your brand better than glass, swap the hero for the 135 g Tin Containers at ₹206.79 a candle — tins travel better and do not chip, which matters if you ship a lot. If your positioning is genuinely premium, the Ceramic Jar at ₹273.71 is a credible hero, though nearly half of that is the vessel. What you should not do is take one of each.

Once you do add a size, treat it like the launch: a wick test of six candles, a stock line in every scent, its own photographs. A size that arrives as an afterthought in one fragrance is worse than no third size at all, because it tells a customer the range is unfinished.

Five ways a new brand gets its size range wrong

1. Buying a vessel because it is beautiful and costing it afterwards

The vessel is between 34% and 47% of material cost at every size on this ladder except the 500 g. Choose it before you have a price point and you have effectively set your price without meaning to. Cost the candle first, then shop.

2. Treating two adjacent fills as two sizes

135 g and 150 g differ by ₹8.93 in materials and land on the same illustrative retail price. If two sizes cannot be told apart at arm’s length or on a price list, they are one size and a stock problem.

3. Reusing one wick across every diameter

A wick that gives a clean full pool in a 70 g votive may tunnel in a 180 g jar or run hot in a tin. The cost difference between C1 at ₹5.90 and C2 at ₹9.44 is ₹3.54 a candle, so there is no money to be saved by guessing. Burn six candles per diameter, cured 14 to 21 days, and pick the smallest wick that gives a full pool at a sensible depth.

4. Launching a large size with no cash behind it

At ₹21,719.52 to open and ₹603.32 of materials in every unit, a 500 g candle ties up more cash per sale than any other line on this page. It is a wonderful second-year product and a poor first-quarter one.

5. Adding a size instead of adding depth

When sales stall, width feels like the answer and almost never is. The same money spent on more units of the size that is already selling turns over faster, needs no new test and no new photographs, and does not add a line to your stock sheet. Add depth until the hero size is reliably in stock; add width only when customers ask for it by name.

One last note on things this page cannot price. Gift boxes, sleeves, ribbon, printed labels, outer cartons, courier and your own labour are not CSI products and no number for them appears anywhere above. They matter enormously to the size decision — a 500 g candle needs a sturdier box and costs more to ship than a 70 g votive — so put your own figures against every size before you decide, and total the range as CSI materials plus your own costs.

Frequently asked questions