What does it cost to make a canned soft drink?
Cost to make, ex-works $0.1614 per 250ml slim can, at 24,000 units
Per 1,000 units$161.37
Whole run$3872.92
This is a realistic mid-market estimate, not a quote. The same product at 5,000 units and at 50,000 units are different businesses — run size moves tolling more than any other line. Use it to sanity-check a quote, not to replace one.
Where the money goes
Ingredients $0.0422 26%Packaging $0.0290 18%Tolling $0.0810 50%Inbound freight $0.0043 3%Yield loss $0.0048 3%
The formulation
| Ingredient | Qty | Price | Overage | Per unit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cane sugar | 45 g/L | $0.26/lb | 2% | $0.0066 |
| Fruit concentrate | 18 g/L | $3.20/lb | 5% | $0.0333 |
| Botanical extract | 3 g/L | $1.10/lb | 5% | $0.0019 |
| Citric acid | 2.2 g/L | $0.29/lb | 2% | $0.0004 |
| Ingredients per unit | $0.0422 | |||
What actually moves this number
- The can, not the liquidOn most soft drinks the empty can and its lid cost more than everything you put in it. Aluminium is the single biggest lever and it is almost entirely outside your control.
- Run sizeTolling per unit typically falls 25–35% between a 10,000-unit run and a 50,000-unit one. The same recipe, the same site, a materially different business.
- Flavour concentrateA premium natural concentrate can be five times the cost of a synthetic equivalent and is usually the difference between a good product and a cheap one.
- Carbonation and processHot fill, cold fill and tunnel pasteurisation all price differently and constrain which sites can run you at all.
What is not in here
- This assumes you buy the ingredients and the co-packer tolls. If the site supplies materials, expect a single landed price per unit instead — usually higher, but with no cash tied up in inventory.
- Excludes outbound freight and 3PL. Add roughly $0.02–0.05 a unit to get to landed cost in a US warehouse.
Change the assumptions. Every figure above is an input, not a fact. Put your own supplier prices, your own pack size and your own run volume into the calculator and see what your product actually costs.
Open the calculatorOther products
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A cost you worked out once is already out of date.
Supplier prices move, co-packers raise rates, and runs yield worse than planned. NextBatch derives cost per unit instead of storing it, so it moves on its own.
No card. Set up your first product in about ten minutes.