The Numbers: What It Costs to Start and What a Market Day Can Earn

Every figure on this page is built from a price or a rule on one of the other pages. The market-day totals are models: arithmetic on stated assumptions, because nothing published says what a coffee stall in Michigan sells in a day. They are here to show which numbers matter. The first few real markets will replace them.

Start here

The whole road from a market table to a shop, stage by stage, is on Start Here.

A 12 oz bag costs	$7.80 in the first season; $6.06 once green is bought by the box (the cost table)
A cup costs	54¢ for a hot coffee; 87¢ to $1.33 for the iced and milk drinks
A market day, bags only	about $112 (Lansing area) or $109 (small town), first season, after card fees
Do cups pay?	Under a season licence, yes; under a $104 licence for every market day, barely, and at a small-town market not at all
On one page	The figures for the till are on the money card

What each thing costs to make

Why green coffee costs what it does is on The Coffee Market.

A 12 oz bag costs $7.80 in green coffee, a foil-lined valve bag, a label and electricity while green is bought in 20 lb lots, and $6.06 once it is bought by the 65 lb box. Both columns, and the arithmetic, are on Bags, Labels and What a Bag Costs, which is the one table this page and the others use. At $17 a bag that leaves $9.20 in the first season and $10.94 by the box; at the small-town price of $16, $8.20 and $9.94.

A cup. Every cup cost below uses first-season coffee: green at $8.00 a pound, after 15% roasting loss, is $9.41 a pound roasted, or 2.07 cents a gram. Buying by the box brings that to 1.59 cents a gram and takes 10 to 13 cents off each cup.

The menu is the same on every page of this section: Prices and Customers sets the prices, The Drinks the methods and Honey in Coffee the honey recipes.

Drink	Price, Lansing area / small town	What goes in	Cost
House coffee, 12 oz, from the airpot	$3.50 / $3.00	20 g coffee 41¢; cup, lid and sleeve 13¢	54¢
Pour-over, 12 oz	$4.00 / $3.50	20 g coffee 41¢; cup set 13¢	54¢
French press, 12 oz	$3.50 / $3.00	20 g coffee 41¢; cup set 13¢	54¢
Cà phê sữa đá (kah fay shoo-uh dah · [kaː˨˩ fej˧˧ ʂɨə˨˩˦ ʔɗaː˦˥]), 16 oz	$5.50 / $5.00	25 g coffee 52¢; condensed milk about 30¢; ice 15¢; clear cup and lid 15¢	$1.12
Iced coffee (flash brew), 16 oz	$4.00 / $3.50	23 g coffee 48¢; 140 g of ice in the brew 9¢ and a cup of ice 15¢ (Iced Coffee and Ice); clear cup 15¢	87¢
Honey coffee, hot, 12 oz (no milk)	$4.50 / $4.00	17 g coffee 35¢; 20 g of 3-to-1 honey syrup, which is 15 g of honey, about 33¢ at its $10-a-pound retail value; cup set 13¢	81¢
Honey-and-milk coffee, 12 oz	$5.00 / $4.50	2 oz phin concentrate, 25 g coffee 52¢; honey 33¢; 3 oz half-and-half about 35¢ (at $3.75 a quart, an assumed supermarket price); cup set 13¢	$1.33
Egg coffee	$6.50 / $6.00	A special, and only if the health department allows it (The Drinks)	not modelled

A wooden honey dipper adds about a dollar to any drink it goes in.

Tax. Cups are taxed at 6% and bags are not (the rules page). The menu prices here include the tax, so a $4.00 cup is $3.77 of revenue.

Card fees. Square charges 2.6% plus 15 cents on an in-person card payment: 59¢ on a $17 bag and 27¢ on a $4.50 cup. The models below charge it on every sale, which is the worst case; cash sales cost nothing. Readers, rates and selling with no signal are on Taking Cards.

Samples. Two hundred tastes of 1½ oz is about 9 litres of coffee. At 55 g a litre that is 495 g, a little over a pound of roasted coffee: about $10 at first-season cost ($8 by the box). The 4 oz cups are another $8 (Sampling). Sampling costs about $18 a market in the first season, or two bags’ profit.

A cup earns less than a bag but far more per pound. A pound of roasted coffee makes 1⅓ bags, worth about $12 after costs at $17, or about 22 hot cups, worth about $60 to $70 after costs and tax at $3.50 to $4.00. The cups are where the money is. They are also what need the licence, the water, the ice and the second pair of hands.

What it costs to start

Stage 1: bags, baked goods and jam under cottage food

Item	Cost
Roaster for the learning year (Behmor 2000AB Plus), optional	$479
Green coffee to learn on and to find the line-up, about 20 lb in small lots	about $160
Valve bags: a carton of 500 foil-lined pouches (why foil)	$225
Brand labels, first roll of 500	about $125
Constant-heat hand sealer rated for foil pouches (why not an impulse sealer)	$185
Scale with timer	$65
Rubber stamp and pad	$50
Refractometer for the jam	not priced here
Tasting airpots, three	$90 to $300
Sample cups, 1,000 compostable	$40
Handwashing station (insulated spigot container, bucket, soap, towels)	not priced here
Total, without the roaster	about $940 to $1,150
Total, with the Behmor	about $1,420 to $1,630

Arithmetic: 160 + 225 + 125 + 185 + 65 + 50 + 40 = $850, plus $90 to $300 of airpots. A first season that buys a hundred compostable pouches ($95) in place of the carton saves $130 now and costs 50 cents more a bag (what “compostable” buys). The steps beyond a hand sealer, with prices, are on Packaging Coffee for Sale.

The canopy, weights, tables and card reader are already part of selling honey at a market. Liability insurance is the cost not in the table: markets ask for anywhere from nothing to $1,000,000 of cover with the market named as insured. What a policy costs and what it covers is on Insurance; get a quote before applying to a market that requires it. Free tastings without a food licence are not settled, so the airpots may wait for Stage 2.

Stage 2: adding brewed cups

Item	Cost
Licence: one temporary licence per market day, or	$104 (Mid-Michigan District, for Clinton County) or $114 (Shiawassee) each
a Transitory Food Unit for the year, first year	about $1,205: $155 licence + two inspections at $90 + plan review $688 + a food-manager course $182 (Shiawassee’s 2026 fees; Mid-Michigan District’s plan review is $690)
the same, each later year	$335: the licence and the two inspections
Vacuum airpots for hot water, four	$120 to $400
Pour-over stand, two drippers, filters	about $200
Phins, 24 oz and 4 oz	not priced here
Second cooler	about $240 for a good one
Probe thermometer, sanitizer, test strips	small
Cups, lids, sleeves, first 1,000	about $130
A second power station with a 1,500 W inverter, optional	$560 to $670
Total, without the power station or licence	about $700 to $1,000

A Transitory Food Unit needs a certified food protection manager (Food-Safety Certification); the $182 is Shiawassee County’s own class fee, and the exam may cost more elsewhere. Spread over 24 markets, the first year’s licence is $50 a market (1,205 ÷ 24) and each later year’s $14 (335 ÷ 24).

Stage 3: a production roaster

Item	Cost
Aillio Bullet R2 (120 V)	$4,099
or Bullet R2 Pro (240 V)	$5,299
Venting, built to suit	not priced
A 240 V circuit, if needed for the Pro	not priced

Payback. Each $17 bag leaves $8.61 in the first season after its making cost and a card fee (17 − 7.80 − 0.59), and $10.35 by the box (17 − 6.06 − 0.59).

	First-season costs	By the box
Bullet R2, $4,099	476 bags (357 lb roasted)	396 bags (297 lb)
Bullet R2 Pro, $5,299	615 bags (461 lb)	512 bags (384 lb)

At 18 bags a market, one market a week, the R2 is paid for in about 26 markets, a little over one season. Choosing a Roaster has why the Behmor cannot make that volume and what the Bullet needs from the wall. Paying for it with savings, a 0% Kiva loan or a Michigan community lender is compared on Financing.

A market day, modelled

Assumptions: 18 bags sold a market, the order of the two published volumes for small roasters at markets (Prices and Customers); that is 13½ lb of roasted coffee a week at one market, and is the base volume every page in this section uses. A $25 stall fee and $17 bags for a Lansing-area market; a $10 fee and $16 bags for a smaller town’s (the market tables).

Bags and samples only

	Lansing area, first season	Small town, first season	Lansing area, by the box
18 bags	$306	$288	$306
Cost of the bags (18 × $7.80, or × $6.06)	−$140	−$140	−$109
Stall fee	−$25	−$10	−$25
Samples	−$18	−$18	−$16
Card fees, every sale by card	−$11	−$10	−$11
Left for the day	about $112	about $109	about $145

Arithmetic, first column: 306 − 140.40 − 25 − 18 − 10.66 = 111.94. The small town’s cheaper stall nearly cancels its cheaper bag. Honey, jam and baked goods sell on the same table and are not in these figures; nothing published gives a basis for modelling them, and the stall’s own first season will.

Adding 40 cups, at an average of $4.50 (Lansing area) or $4.00 (small town), and an average cost of about 85¢ across the menu above

	Season licence, first year ($50 a market)	Season licence, later years ($14)	Temporary licence every market ($104)
Lansing area
40 cups, less sales tax	$170	$170	$170
Cost of the cups	−$34	−$34	−$34
Water, and ice for the cooler	−$11	−$11	−$11
Card fees	−$11	−$11	−$11
Licence	−$50	−$14	−$104
Added by the cups	about $64	about $100	about $10
Day total with bags	about $176	about $212	about $122
Small town
40 cups, less sales tax	$151	$151	$151
Costs, ice and card fees as above	−$55	−$55	−$55
Licence	−$50	−$14	−$104
Added by the cups	about $46	about $82	a loss of about $8

Arithmetic, Lansing first column: 40 × 4.50 ÷ 1.06 = 169.81; minus 34, 11, 10.68 and 50.21 leaves 63.92.

That table is the most useful thing on this page. Whether cups are worth selling depends on how the licence is charged. Under a licence paid once for the season, forty cups add about $64 a market in the first year, when the plan review and the manager course are paid, and about $100 after. Under a $104 licence for every market day, forty cups at a Lansing-area market barely cover it; the break-even is about 37 cups ((104 + 11) ÷ 3.13 a cup). At a small-town market, with lower cup prices, they do not cover it at all. How a weekly vendor is licensed is the first question for the health department (question 10 on the rules page).

For comparison, one roaster on a 2015 forum thread reported averaging about $250 for a five-hour market.

A season, and the cottage food cap

	One market a week, 24 weeks	Two a week
Bags sold, at 18 a market	432	864
Roasted coffee	324 lb	648 lb
Bag revenue, at $17	$7,344	$14,688
Left from bags, first-season costs	about $2,690	about $5,370
Left from bags, by the box	about $3,490	about $6,970

Arithmetic, one market a week, first season: 7,344 − (432 × 7.80 = 3,369.60) − (24 × 25 = 600) − (24 × 18 = 432) − (24 × 10.66 = 255.84) = 2,686.56.

A prepaid season share of twenty members adds about $2,700 to $3,400 on top of this, and its money can buy the green by the box (Subscriptions and a Coffee Share). What is left is profit for tax purposes: it goes on Schedule C, with 15.3% self-employment tax on top of income tax (Setting Up the Business).

Those are far inside the $50,000 cottage food cap, which MDARD’s own pages still showed on 5 October 2026 (the rules page). The cap is reached at about 2,940 bags a year (50,000 ÷ 17), which is 42 lb of roasted coffee a week, every week. A stall selling 60 lb a week all year would be over it, and would need a licensed kitchen whatever else was true. Baked goods and jam count toward the same cottage food total; by MSU Extension’s reading, honey and maple syrup each have a separate cap. Since March 2026 cottage food may also be sold online and by mail within Michigan, with conditions (Selling Online and by Mail).

Where the money is, and is not

• Green coffee is about 90% of a bag’s cost. Buying by the 65 lb box takes $1.74 off every bag.
• The cup itself is a rounding error. A stamped kraft cup set costs 13 cents, two cents more than the cheapest white one; the compostable set is eight cents more (Cups, and Standing Out).
• The licence structure is not a rounding error. It can be $14 a market, $50, or $104.
• Card fees are larger than the cup. At 2.6% plus 15 cents they take about 59 cents from every bag.
• Sampling is cheap at $18 a market, and nothing sells a bag like a taste.
• Unsold bags are not lost. Coffee more than two weeks from roast comes home (Packaging) and becomes the stall’s brewed coffee, cold brew at home, or cooking. The loss is the bag and label, about 70 cents.
• Not modelled here: mileage to and from the markets; the honey, jam and bakery side of the table; and time.
• Time is the cost that is not on any of these tables. Roasting, bagging, labelling, baking, loading, a five-hour market and unloading is two long days for one market. A Behmor by its manual adds more: the 18 bags above would take it sixteen batches and about 25 hours, and its maker voids the warranty for commercial use (Choosing a Roaster). Power for the cups is on Hot Water and Power.

The road to the shop

517 Coffee Company in Lansing began roasting at home and selling at farmers markets in 2014 and opened its first shop in 2021: seven years. It is the one published Michigan example of that road. Honey, jam, baked goods and coffee on one table should shorten it, since each sale is larger. What the market years are for, besides the savings:

1. A line-up of coffees that sells, proved week by week.
2. A list of customers who will follow the stall to a shop.
3. A record of sales that a landlord or a lender will read.
4. Answers, in writing, from MDARD and the health department on every open question on the rules page.

The shop changes the arithmetic in three ways already visible here: a licensed kitchen removes the cottage food cap and the limits on ice, cold brew and syrup; it allows wholesale, at about 69% of the retail price by one Michigan roaster’s published list; and it lets the shop’s own staff serve at a market under the shop’s licence. A shared or toll roastery is a way to reach the licensed kitchen before the shop (Toll Roasting, Private Label and Shared Roasteries). What the shop itself takes — the lease, the plan review, the equipment, staff and a café’s profit and loss — is on Opening a Coffee Shop.

Sources

• Every price not linked here is taken from the other pages of this section and their sources; the bag cost from Bags, Labels and What a Bag Costs.
• Health department fees: Shiawassee County Health Department, fee schedule effective 1 January 2026 (STFU licence $155, STFU inspection $90, minor plan review $688, temporary licence $114, food training class $182); Mid-Michigan District Health Department, temporary food fee memo ($104) and Transitory Food Unit plan review instructions (rev. October 2026: full plan review $690, partial $340); Central Michigan District and Bay County schedules; MCL 289.6137 for the Transitory Food Unit inspections.
• Square, “Our fees”, read 5 October 2026.
• CoffeeForums (2015) and the Upstate Business Journal (2024) for the two sales volumes; WITL (2024) for 517 Coffee.
• MCL 289.4102(5) for the cap; MSU Extension on the separate caps for honey and maple syrup.