MadeKeeper is inventory and pricing software for candle makers.
One pour, one number: wax by the pound, fragrance at the load you actually use, the vessels and the wicks, all of it divided by the twelve that came out. Cure counted, that is a candle's cost.
Free tools, no signup: the fair profit calculator · Candle cost calculator.
free to start, and no card to start. No order-line meters, ever.
$19/mo for the whole back office, kept for as long as you stay. No card to start — MadeKeeper asks for one when you subscribe, not before. The shop stays free for cost a piece and one fair — no product cap. The tax packet, Etsy and Square, and more fairs are the $19.
Candles, specifically
Same books underneath — the numbers below are the ones that change.
Wax melts
Wax melts are the candle's sharper little sibling: no wick to test, no vessel to buy, a fragrance load that runs hotter, and a $6 clamshell that costs a dollar thirty to pour. The melt bar is often the best margin on a candle maker's table — or a whole business by itself. MadeKeeper does the clamshell math to the penny.
Say you pour a 5-lb batch at a 10% load:
- 5 lb soy-paraffin blend @ $2.85/lb$14.25
- 8 oz fragrance oil @ $1.25/oz$10.00
- 29 clamshells @ 38¢$11.02
- Labels, 29 @ 9¢$2.61
At $6 each you keep $4.69 a clamshell — a better percentage than most candles on the same table, with no wick testing and no glass to haul. The numbers explain why the melt bar keeps growing.
Room sprays
Room sprays flip the candle's economics: the amber bottle and sprayer cost more than the fragrance inside, the batch takes an afternoon instead of a cure week, and the $12 price rides entirely on scent and label. It's the fastest product on the home-fragrance table — when the bottle math is honest. MadeKeeper keeps it that way.
Say you fill a batch of 24 4-oz sprays:
- 24 amber bottles and sprayers @ 88¢$21.12
- 12 oz fragrance oil @ $1.25/oz$15.00
- Base (water, solubilizer, alcohol)$6.40
- Labels, 24 @ 12¢$2.88
At $12 each you keep $10.11 a bottle — poured, capped, and labeled in an afternoon with no cure rack in sight. The spray line is the sprint of home fragrance; the books just make sure it's a paid one.
You already do the maker math — wax by the pound, an 8% fragrance load, wicks from the bag of 100, vessels by the case. What usually goes missing is the money math: what one candle truly costs, with the two-week cure counted. MadeKeeper finishes the equation your batch notes started.
How MadeKeeper maps to your pour table
MadeKeeper pours wax, fragrance, wicks and vessels as one batch
A batch recipe pulls wax by the pound, fragrance oil by the ounce, and wicks and vessels per unit. Pour twenty-one candles and all twenty-one know their cost.MadeKeeper puts the cure on the calendar
A candle curing for two weeks is made but not sellable, and your stock counts say so. Hot throw takes the time it takes — your books should know it.MadeKeeper stamps every pour with its lot
Which wax, which wick, which fragrance, poured when — recorded against the batch. If a wick issue turns up later it traces to one pour, not to a whole season.MadeKeeper separates market, wholesale and club money
Fair tables, wholesale into shops, and subscription boxes each track their own pricing and fees — with the event math on every market Saturday.One batch, to the penny
Say you pour a 10-lb batch of 8-oz tins at 8% fragrance load:
- 10 lb soy wax @ $2.60/lb$26.00
- 12.8 oz fragrance oil @ $1.25/oz$16.00
- 24 wicks (per-100 bag)$2.88
- 21 tins @ $1.10$23.10
- Labels and warning stickers$1.68
At $18 a tin, each candle clears $14.68 before fees — and the batch's lot number follows every tin, so a wick issue later traces back to one pour, not a season of guessing.
MadeKeeper keeps your batch and lot records — which wax, which wick, which fragrance, poured when — the records behind ASTM warning labels and net-weight labeling, in the app instead of a binder.
Market Saturday, for candle makers
The bench is one half of it. MadeKeeper follows candle makers out to the booth as well: it opens on one bar of signal, rings a sale in taps and files it against that day's event, holds that sale on the phone if the signal quits and puts it through when the bars come back, reads the tag you printed, and prints a market-day sheet before you load the truck.
None of that is a card reader. Candle makers take payment however they already take it; MadeKeeper only keeps the count honest while you sell. Everything it does at the booth →
Straight about what's live
Materials and true cost per piece, batch "makes" with your labor amortized in, the suggested-price coach, product variants, sales that drain stock, the market-day quick-sale screen, lot tracking, the was-this-fair-worth-it event math, money-insight reports, multi-location consignment, the cure/best-by heads-up engine, mileage, expenses, and the Schedule C tax packet are all in the app today, with guided setup and a full Craftybase history migration to get you started. So are Etsy order sync, Square card sync, your own shop page, a Buy button on your own Square account, and custom-order requests off a piece you already sold. On the $24 MadeKeeper AI plan you also get receipts, shelves and recipe cards read from a photo — photo reads are on that plan; hand entry is how the $19 shop starts. Still building: your own books answered in plain words, buying a shipping label inside the app, and a best-customers report. MadeKeeper does not send marketing email to your buyers and is not going to: every maker here sends from one shared reputation, and a quote that has to arrive matters more than a mailing list. Nothing above is dressed up as done when it is not. See the full live-vs-building list →
Questions candle makers ask
Does MadeKeeper understand fragrance load?
The free candle calculator sizes the pour at your load — 10 lb of wax at 8% is 12.8 oz of fragrance oil. The batch recipe then costs those quantities at your supplier's prices. Carrying the load percentage inside the recipe itself is on the build list, not shipped.
How does the cure window work?
Poured candles count as made but not sellable until their cure date. Your sellable stock is what's actually ready — so a big market weekend gets planned around the rack, not around wishful counting.
Can I track burn tests?
Not as its own record yet. Development jars can go in as a business expense, so they land in your books — but they do not yet come off that fragrance line's per-unit cost. A testing-consumption record is on the build list, and I would rather say so than let you find out later.
Why do melts out-margin candles?
No vessel and no wick — the two costs that eat a candle's price — while the fragrance load runs higher and the clamshell costs less than a tin. Your own numbers in MadeKeeper will show the exact spread for your line.
How does the fragrance load work in the math?
The recipe holds the percentage: five pounds of wax at 10% pulls eight ounces of oil, costed at your supplier's price. Bump the load or swap the oil and the batch cost updates itself.
Can I run melts and candles together?
Same wax shelf, same ledger, separate products — most makers run both. The channel math will tell you what the melt bar contributes to a market day, and it's usually more than its table space.
What actually drives a spray's cost?
Packaging. The bottle-and-sprayer is usually half the unit cost, which is why case-price shopping matters more here than fragrance-price shopping. The ledger makes that visible the first time you log a batch.
How do I keep scents consistent batch to batch?
The batch record holds the exact oil, ratio, and supplier — so the bestseller made in March is repeatable in October, and a supplier substitution shows up in the notes instead of in a customer's raised eyebrow.
Do sprays need cure time like candles?
A day or two of resting helps the mix marry, but there's no cure rack — sprays are your fastest turnaround product. Batches carry their fill date, so freshness stays a fact, not a feeling.
Ready to see your real numbers?
The app is live. $19/mo, kept for as long as you stay.