ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Joint product pricing

Okay kiddo, so imagine that you and your friend are baking cookies. You decide to make two different types of cookies: chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin. But when you mix all the ingredients together, you end up with one big bowl of cookie dough that has both types of cookies in it. This is what we call a joint product.

Now, if your friend wants to sell only the chocolate chip cookies and you want to sell only the oatmeal raisin cookies, you have to figure out how to split the cost of making the dough. This is where joint product pricing comes in. You need to decide how much each type of cookie costs to make based on the amount of ingredients you use, the time it takes to bake them, and any other costs involved.

Let's say that it cost $10 to make the cookie dough and you got 20 chocolate chip cookies and 20 oatmeal raisin cookies out of it. That means it cost $0.50 to make each cookie. But if your friend wants to sell the chocolate chip cookies for $1 each and you want to sell the oatmeal raisin cookies for $1.50 each, you need to figure out a fair way to split the cost so that you both make a profit.

One way to do this is to use a cost allocation method. This means that you allocate the joint costs (in this case, the cost of making the cookie dough) based on how much each product contributes to the total revenue. So if your friend sells all the chocolate chip cookies for $20 and you sell all the oatmeal raisin cookies for $30, the total revenue is $50. The chocolate chip cookies contributed 40% of the total revenue ($20/$50) and the oatmeal raisin cookies contributed 60% ($30/$50).

Using this method, you can calculate how much each cookie costs to make based on how much revenue it generates. If the chocolate chip cookies contributed 40% of the revenue, they should be allocated 40% of the joint cost, which is $4 ($10 x 40%). That means each chocolate chip cookie costs $0.20 to make ($4/20 cookies). The same goes for the oatmeal raisin cookies - if they contributed 60% of the revenue, they should be allocated 60% of the joint cost, which is $6 ($10 x 60%). That means each oatmeal raisin cookie costs $0.30 to make ($6/20 cookies).

Now, you and your friend can sell your cookies at the prices you agreed on and make a profit. You sell your oatmeal raisin cookies for $1.50 each, which means you make a profit of $1.20 per cookie ($1.50 - $0.30). Your friend sells the chocolate chip cookies for $1 each, which means they make a profit of $0.80 per cookie ($1 - $0.20). This way, you both get paid fairly for your cookies even though they were made from the same dough.