What this does that most candle-cost templates do not: it tracks curing. A soy or coconut candle needs one to two weeks to cure before it throws scent properly, and a batch sold too early smells weak and comes back as a disappointed review. On the Curing sheet you enter the pour date and a cure time in days for each batch, and the kit gives you the ready-to-sell date, the days left and a clear CURING / ALMOST / READY flag against your working date — so nothing ships before it is ready and you always know which finished stock is safe to sell today. Most candle-cost templates stop at the material cost — this one keeps going.

On top of that it does the money properly. On Materials you list what you buy — soy and coconut wax, fragrance oils, wooden and cotton wicks, jars, tins, warning and branded labels, gift boxes — with the pack price, the pack size and the usable % after spillage, and the cost of one gram, millilitre or piece is worked out for you. On Recipes you build each candle’s bill of materials; on Products the material cost, your pouring and finishing labour and a share of overhead roll up into the true cost of one 8oz jar, 12oz jar or tin. Wicks, vessels and both labels are counted one per candle, so packaging and the safety label are costed and stocked too, not overlooked.

Pricing shows both numbers, named correctly: margin as a share of the price and markup as a share of the cost, side by side, plus the exact price for a target margin and the break-even candles at the price you actually charge — so a "65%" target is never confused for the wrong one. And it is a full stock room: a reorder point built from your own daily usage and supplier lead time flags every material OK, REORDER or OUT OF STOCK before you run out of wax or jars mid-order. The Sales sheet logs each order and the Dashboard adds it all up — revenue, COGS, gross profit and margin, net after fixed costs and the tax to set aside, stock value, materials to reorder and which candles earn the most.

Built for Excel 2016+ and Google Sheets with classic, compatible formulas only — no macros, no add-ons, nothing locked. Any currency (one symbol cell). Sample data for a real candle maker is filled in so every number and the chart are alive on first open; clear the yellow cells and it is yours. Every headline figure in this listing was measured from the built file, recalculated by LibreOffice and checked against an independent model of the same arithmetic.