Free tool · About 5 minutes
What Will It Actually Cost to Develop and Launch Your Beverage?
Get a real budget range from formula to shelf, built on actual co-packer quotes and cost models, not a generic template.
Four phases: development, production, goods and working capital, and launch rollout. Answer a few questions and get a defensible number.
A Real Number Across All Four Phases
The calculator walks the whole path from idea to first shelf, so the range you leave with covers the parts most estimates skip.
01
Development
What formulation really runs, self-sourced versus a “free” flavor-house deal that gets priced into every unit forever.
02
Production
Your first-run make-cost at craft, committed-volume, and turnkey co-packing, so you see the arrangement is a lever.
03
Goods & Working Capital
The cash that stays frozen as you scale, and the roughly 70-day gap between paying the co-packer and getting paid by retail.
04
Launch Rollout
Slotting, trade, and marketing to get on shelf, sized to whether you are going local, regional, or national.
Before You Commit Capital
Every Cost Answer You’ve Gotten Is Either a Shrug or a Number With No Math Behind It.
A flavor house quotes the formula. A co-packer quotes the run. Nobody prices the space between them, and that is where the money hides.
Here is what a single quote usually leaves out:
A formula quote, which is not the same as the packaging and tolling that make up most of your make-cost.
A per-unit cost, which is not the same as the working capital that stays frozen as you scale.
A shelf price you hope works, which is not the same as the cost that price can actually support after the retail and distributor waterfall.
A launch budget, which is not the same as the slotting and trade spend it takes to hold the shelf you win.
This calculator gives you the math, across all four phases, in about five minutes.
Why I Built This Calculator
Hi, I’m Matt Carden, founder of Rapid CPG.
Founders ask me the same question at the start: what will this cost? The honest answer is a range, and most of that range lives in packaging, tolling, and the co-packer arrangement, not the ingredients everyone worries about.
So I put our real cost models and co-packer quotes behind a short set of questions. It gives you a defensible budget the same way I would in a first conversation. No single false-precise number, just a real range and the one lever that moves it most.
Run your idea through it. If you want the real model built on your formula and your quotes, that is the next conversation.
— Matt Carden
Founder, Rapid CPG
THE COST FIND
“He identified nearly $100,000 in annual cost we were carrying in the wrong part of our formulas, before we signed anything.”
— Founder, Multi-SKU Craft Beverage Brand | ~$400K Annual Ingredient Spend
The number in this calculator comes from the same cost models and co-packer quotes behind findings like that one. It is a map, not a guess.
Start the calculator
Enter your name and email, then the calculator opens. It takes about five minutes and we email your summary at the end. No spam.
Rapid CPG is an independent beverage product development and commercialization consultancy. We connect formulation, cost modeling, co-packer selection, and production oversight into one accountable function, so beverage founders and brands can develop, cost, and scale products that hold up in real manufacturing. Operator-led and independent, with no inventory and no production line to fill, so every recommendation serves your product’s economics, not ours.
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Independent beverage commercialization consulting.
