How much do you save formulating yourself?
If you work with ready-made bases and compound pastes, a good chunk of what you pay is milk powder, dextrose and sugar with a margin on top. This calculates, with real professional-supplier prices, what it would cost you to do the same from raw ingredients — and also tells you where it isn't worth it.
| Cost today, with base and paste | — €/kg |
| Cost formulating yourself | — €/kg |
| Difference per kg of mix | — € |
Try it free with 3 formulas See pricing
No card needed. If you'd like us to teach you to formulate from scratch, write to hola@gelatomaps.com.
Where the number comes from
What matters isn't the total, it's the breakdown. This 50 g of base you pay €1.19 for is, according to the manufacturer's own technical sheet, this:
| 50 g of base 50 contain… | Amount | Bought as raw ingredients |
|---|---|---|
| Dextrose | 29 g | €0.055 |
| Skimmed milk powder | 12 g | €0.053 |
| Emulsifier (mono- and diglycerides) | 3 g | €0.028 |
| Stabilisers (guar, locust bean, CMC…) | 1 g | €0.012 |
| Buying it as raw ingredients | 45 g | €0.15 |
| Buying it as "base 50" | 50 g | €1.19 |
And with base 100, there's more than money at stake
High-dosage bases don't replace milk powder: they replace cream with fully hydrogenated coconut vegetable fat (it's in the technical sheet: up to 38% fat and barely 3% milk solids). Formulating with real cream costs about the same and is a different product — and your customer can tell.
Where you won't save
With cheap fruit pastes. A compound strawberry paste runs €0.22-0.77 per kg of mix, and a vanilla one €0.44. There's no margin to squeeze there: if anything, you gain in flavour and label, not money.
With economy base. If you buy a base 50 at €9.54/kg, the savings drop to about €0.25/kg. Still money, but it won't change your life.
And formulating costs work. Workshop time, a pasteuriser, eight or ten SKUs in storage, and technical judgement to not ruin a batch. That's why the calculator subtracts the hours: honest savings are what's left afterwards.
Pistachio, a case of its own
This is where the difference between saving and improving shows most clearly:
| Pistachio, 1 kg of mix | Cost | What's inside |
|---|---|---|
| Base + compound paste (70 g) | €4.51 | sugar, flavouring and colouring; little actual fruit |
| Raw ingredients + 30 g ground pistachio | €3.20 | real fruit, same flavour hit |
| Raw ingredients + 80 g pistachio (8%) | €5.10 | signature ice cream: pricier and better |
| Buying 100% pure ready-made paste | €8.25 | the same as above, at double the price |
Grinding the pistachio yourself saves about €3.5 per kg compared to buying pure paste. And if what you want is to move up a tier, now you know exactly what it costs.
The prices we used
Reference prices from the Spanish and Italian professional market, all verified on 30 July 2026 at professional suppliers, excluding VAT. With a supplier contract they drop 10-25%… on both columns, so the savings hold.
Bases: PreGel Diamante 50 (€23.80/kg) and Panna 50 (€18.17), Primapanna 50 (€9.54), Diamante 100 (€18.71), Base Latte Antonella 100 (€13.06), Base Anxur 300 (€7.92) — progelcone.es, gelatostore.it.
Pastes: pure pistachio Joypaste (€65.77/kg) and compound Torronalba (€21.73), hazelnut SaporePuro (€33.67), vanilla Aromitalia (€17.78), cocoa Joypaste (€18.66), strawberry Ebbany (€10.95) — payco.es, gelatostore.it, ebbany.com.
Raw ingredients: whole milk €1.55/L, 35% cream €5.93/L, skimmed milk powder €4.41/kg, sucrose €1.02, dextrose €1.92, atomised glucose €2.93, stabiliser blend €12.00, emulsifier €9.44, raw shelled pistachio €37.99, roasted hazelnut €27.78, alkalised cocoa €17.77 — edishos.es, payco.es, suministrosmaestre.com, dulkado.com.
Base composition: PreGel Diamante 50 technical data sheet (FTC 0131.02) and Diamante 100.