I Have a Corporate Order for 500 × 150 g Candles in One Fragrance — How Do I Calculate the Exact Raw-Material Requirement Before Sending My Quotation?

The requirement, including samples

Start from the finished candle. At 150 g and 8%, oil = 150 × 0.08 = 12 g and wax = 150 × 0.92 = 138 g. Then list every candle you will pour. The 500 are obvious. Less obvious are the samples: a corporate buyer typically wants to see and smell the candle before approving, and sometimes a second one for a colleague. Your own tests come first, to fix the wick and confirm the scent. All of those are candles, and all of them use materials you must pay for whether or not the order is confirmed.

The samples raise a fair question: should they be in the procurement figure at all, since you pour them before the order is confirmed? For the quotation, yes. Their cost is part of what winning this order costs you, and the price has to carry it. Whether you buy their materials separately in 15 g bottles or from the production stock is a timing question. A Client Wants 1,000 Candles but Expects 20 Samples Before Final Production — Should the Sample Raw Materials be Included in My Procurement Calculation? covers that decision for a 1,000-candle order with 20 samples.

150 g in a 200 ml jar

The 200 ml Salsa Glass Jar with 63 mm golden lug cap comes with its cap, which matters for corporate gifting. It is sold in 5s (₹200.60), 50s (₹1,475.00) and 100s (₹2,950.00), which is ₹29.50 a jar at 50 or 100 and ₹40.12 in fives. Its 200 ml is a brim volume. Solid soy wax is lighter than water; a working approximation of 0.86–0.90 g of wax per ml puts a brim fill at roughly 172–180 g. A 150 g candle therefore sits below the shoulder with headspace for the cap, which is what you want. But the approximation varies with the wax, the temperature and where you stop pouring, so weigh a test pour before you quote.

I Ordered 100 × 200 ml Candle Jars — How Do I Calculate How Much Wax They Actually Need When 200 ml Does Not Mean 200 g of Candle Wax? explains in full why 200 ml never means 200 g of wax, and I Have 500 × 300 ml Jars but Only Want to Fill Them to a Specific Line — How Do I Calculate Actual Wax Requirement Before Production? covers filling to a specific line in a larger jar.

Pricing the requirement in whole packs

You cannot buy 6,241.80 g of oil, only packs. The quotation should be built on what you actually pay, so round each line up to listed, in-stock packs.

Two pack details are worth knowing. Cucumber Green Tea is ₹3.53 a gram at 100 g and ₹3.33 at 500 g and 1 kg, so the kilo bottles carry the order and the smaller sizes only top it up. CSI 464 is flat at ₹507.40 a kilo from 1 kg to 10 kg, so the bag mix makes no difference to the price per kilo; choose bags you can store and handle. The jars are cheapest in 100s; the four packs of five cover the last few jars at ₹40.12 each, which is cheaper than an extra 50-pack you would mostly not use.

The cost basis for the quotation

The difference between the first and last rows is ₹6.89 a candle, ₹3,442.65 across the order. That is the cost of samples, tests, pour loss, spares and rounding, and it is real money you will spend. A quotation built on the bare recipe gives it away. The middle figure is reasonable if Cucumber Green Tea and CSI 464 are regular stock for you and the leftovers will simply roll into the next job. For a one-off corporate scent, use the whole-pack figure.

What moves the quote

Two decisions change the material cost after you have calculated it: the wax, and the fragrance load. Both are worth settling before the quotation goes out.

Natural Soy Pearl would lower the quote by ₹11.79 a candle, but it has no fragrance ceiling in our data, so test it at 8% before quoting on it. Chunks, rated up to 13%, and Premium Coconut Soy CSI 468 are dearer. For a corporate order at 8%, CSI 464 is the lower-cost of the two waxes with a stated ceiling. Whichever you choose, pour your samples in it.

Because Cucumber Green Tea is a low-priced oil, moving from 8% to 10% adds about ₹9.98 of oil per candle at the kilo rate. With a premium oil the same 3 g costs much more: at Dark Vanilla's ₹7.65 a gram it is ₹22.94 a candle. CSI 464 is rated up to 10% by the wax maker, which is a formulation maximum, not a target. We publish no throw data per oil, so settle the load with the samples, then fix it in the quotation.

From cost to quotation

CSI's materials are only part of the cost of a corporate candle. The rest comes from your own suppliers and your own time. The figures below are examples only, to show the structure; replace each with your printer's, box supplier's and courier's quotes and your own labour rate.

To turn a cost into a price, decide on a gross margin and divide. At an example 50% gross margin (replace with your own target), price = ₹240.24 ÷ (1 − 0.50) = ₹480.48 before GST. That is a 50% gross margin on the selling price, and a 100% markup on cost. The two are often confused: a 50% markup on cost gives only a 33% gross margin. State which one you mean in your own records. We do not state GST rates here; add GST as your accountant advises.

For the next steps: I Have a Corporate Order for 1,000 × 200 g Candles — How Much Wax, Fragrance Oil and How Many Wicks Should I Order if Production Rejects Are Expected? adds a production reject rate, which raises the requirement again; I Have a Corporate Order for 250 × 200 g Candles — How Much Wax and Fragrance Should I Purchase if I Want 5% Extra Finished Stock? adds finished stock the client can call on; and I Need to Quote a 5,000-Candle Order Before Buying Anything — How Do I Convert the Client Quantity into Wax, Fragrance, Wick and Jar Procurement Quantities? runs this calculation for a 5,000-candle quote before anything is bought. The hub, 300 × 80 g wedding order, sets out the order of allowances.

Frequently asked questions