# How to add your recipes

Build each recipe from your ingredients and the steps it takes to make it. Prophitable adds up what the ingredients cost and what the time costs, then divides by the batch's weight to get a cost per gram.

Source: https://www.prophitable.io/help/cost/recipes (updated 2026-10-29)

## Add a recipe

1. Go to **Recipes** and click **Add Recipe**.
2. Under **General Information**, enter the **Name** and the **Shelf Life**: how long a batch stays fresh once it's made.
3. Answer **What does this recipe produce?**:
   - **Portions**: made in bulk, then used by weight or split into sizes. Dough, sauce, ganache and truffles are Portions.
   - **Whole Item**: the finished recipe is sold as one product, like a sandwich, a burrito or a whole cake.
4. Under **Recipe**, click **+** to add each ingredient and enter how much one batch uses. Your saved Portions recipes are in the list too, so a base like a caramel or a dough can go into another recipe.

   ![The Recipe card for a caramel: five ingredients, 1,893 g in all, $17.87 of ingredients](https://www.prophitable.io/_astro/recipes-ingredients.9CYducAk.png)

   > [!TIP]
   > Build a base like this caramel once, then use it in any recipe, output or product that needs it. Change it later, a new amount or a bigger batch, and everything that uses it re-costs on its own. No product gets updated by hand.

5. Under **Assembly Steps**, click **+** to add each step, with how long it takes for one batch.
6. Click **Save**.

Save won't go through until the recipe has a name, a shelf life, Portions or Whole Item chosen, and at least one ingredient with a quantity. If you save without any steps, Prophitable checks first, because a recipe with no time has no labor cost.

## What you'll see

At the bottom of **General Information**, a Portions recipe shows its **Recipe Cost** for one batch and its **Cost / Gram**. The caramel above uses $17.87 of ingredients and takes 3 minutes 30 seconds, which adds $2.15 of labor. That's $20.02 for 1,893 g, or **$0.0106** a gram.

A Whole Item recipe shows its **Recipe Cost** for the whole item instead, and saving it makes its product for you, ready to price.

Labor is the step time at your staff's average **Total Paid Per Hour**. If you haven't added a wage yet, labor shows $0.00 with a note that the labor rate isn't set.

## Portions or Whole Item?

Pick Portions when products use the recipe by weight, or when you sell it in more than one size. You can add those sizes as outputs. Pick Whole Item when you make it and sell it as it is.

You can't change a Whole Item to Portions once it's saved. A Portions recipe can still switch until it has outputs, stock, or a product that uses it.

## Have a lot of recipes?

Click **Import** on the Recipes page and upload the spreadsheet you already keep. You'll see what it read and can fix anything before it's saved.