Jerky is a shrink business: six pounds of raw round dries down to about two pounds of finished jerky, so the lean meat you bought is most of what every bag costs. Add cure, seasoning, smoke, resealable pouches, and a six-month best-by, and the margin lives on yield. MadeKeeper costs the batch by what actually came off the racks, not by what went on them.
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Say a batch dries 6 lb of raw round into 16 2-oz bags:
At $9 a bag you keep $6.05 before the table fee — and the ledger shows the beef alone took $39.00 of the $47.16, better than four dollars of every bag. That 3-to-1 shrink is why jerky priced like a snack quietly loses money; MadeKeeper prices it like the meat business it is.
Dried meat sits outside cottage food rules in many states — jerky often needs an inspected or commercial kitchen, and some states don't allow home-based meat sales at all. MadeKeeper keeps the batch, cure, date, and label records an inspected operation tracks anyway; where your state landed, and what license it asks for, stays yours to check with your program.
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 — all in the app today, with guided setup and a full Craftybase history migration to get you started. Etsy and Square sync, your own storefront, shipping labels, email to past buyers, and AI data entry are building, shaped with founding makers. Nothing above describes a feature that doesn't exist without saying so. See the full live-vs-building list →
You log the raw weight in and the finished bags out, and the batch splits its whole cost across the yield — so the 3-to-1 loss is priced in, not guessed at. A dry batch that came out light shows the thinner margin honestly.
Yes — each batch carries a made-on date and a best-by, defaulted around jerky's six-month mark. Bags past their best-by drop out of your sellable and market-ready counts, so nothing stale rides along to the table.
Often not — dried meat is one of the products most states keep out of home kitchens, and the rules vary widely. MadeKeeper keeps the records an inspected kitchen would keep regardless; what your state allows and licenses stays between you and your program.
The app is live and free during the pilot. Lock the $19/mo founding rate for as long as you stay.