Running a successful winery is as much about smart financial management as it is about producing great wine. But for many winery owners and operators, pricing strategies and production forecasting can feel like an overwhelming task—especially without a financial background. That’s where Innovint comes in. Innovint is a winery management software designed to streamline operations and provide clear, data-backed insights, including help with pricing and forecasting.
Whether you manage a small estate vineyard or a large commercial winery, Innovint can be a powerful tool for making better business decisions. Here’s how it can simplify and improve your approach to pricing and forecasts.
Understanding the Importance of Pricing and Forecasting
Before we dive into Innovint’s features, it’s essential to understand why pricing and forecasting are important.
Pricing
Setting the right price for your wine ensures you’re not only covering your costs but also turning a profit and staying competitive. Underpricing can leave money on the table while overpricing can reduce demand. Both underpricing and overpricing could hurt brand perception.
Forecasting
Forecasting enables you to plan production, allocate resources, and effectively manage inventory. Accurate forecasts reduce waste, prevent shortages, and ensure that you’re ready for both expected and unexpected changes in demand.
Many wineries rely on gut instinct or outdated spreadsheets for these tasks. Innovint provides a more innovative, data-driven alternative.
How Innovint Helps with Pricing
Innovint streamlines and strengthens your pricing decisions in the following key ways:
1. Tracks True Production Costs
To set profitable prices, you need to know the cost of producing your wine. Innovint tracks all aspects of your wine production, including:
- Fruit costs
- Processing and labor
- Additives and materials
- Barrel aging and storage
- Bottling and packaging
As you enter operational data, Innovint compiles this into a running tally of costs per lot, per SKU, and per case. This gives you a real-time cost of goods sold (COGS), which is crucial for setting a price that protects your margins.
2. Builds Historical Context for Benchmarking
Innovint stores data year over year, helping you compare costs across vintages and varietals. For example, suppose your Cabernet Sauvignon previously had a gross margin of 60% but has dropped to 45%. In that case, you can quickly identify this shift and take action—whether that means adjusting pricing, reviewing production costs, or exploring ways to improve efficiency.
This historical data also helps you spot trends in your expenses and plan more confidently for the future.
3. Enables Tiered Pricing Strategies
With detailed cost visibility, Innovint supports more advanced pricing strategies such as:
- Volume discounts for distributors
- Premium pricing for reserve lots
- Custom rates for wine clubs or direct-to-consumer sales
How Innovint Supports Forecasting
Innovint doesn’t just help with pricing. It also provides you with tools to create production and sales forecasts based on real data rather than just guesses.
1. Inventory Management with Real-Time Data
Innovint tracks your inventory across all stages of production, including grapes, juice, bulk wine, barrels, and bottled cases. This visibility lets you see exactly what you have on hand and what’s in progress.
This helps you forecast how much wine you’ll be able to sell, fulfill orders on time, and plan future production.
2. Production Planning Based on Historical Data
Want to know how many tons of Chardonnay you’ll need to produce 1,000 cases next year? Innovint can show you the conversion rates from past harvests and bottlings. This allows you to reverse-engineer your production plan from your sales goals.
You can also plan staffing, barrel orders, tank space, and bottling dates with more accuracy.
3. Harvest Forecasting and Vineyard Yields
Innovint’s vineyard management tools help track estimated yields by block or varietal. As you collect data from pruning, fruit set, and cluster counts, the software refines its estimates.
This means you can predict your harvest tonnage more reliably—and start making sales and production decisions earlier in the year.
Making It Easy for Winery Professionals
Innovint is built for winery professionals, not accountants. Here’s how it makes financial tasks accessible:
Simple, Visual Dashboards
You don’t need to crunch numbers in Excel or build complex models. Innovint provides easy-to-read dashboards that show key metrics like:
- Cost per gallon or case
- Forecasted yields and inventory
- Real-time production costs
These visuals help you see what’s going on at a high level with the ability to dig into the details.
Integrated Workflows
Pricing and forecasting tools are built into the same workflows you already use for harvest tracking, fermentation logs, and bottling records. You’re not doing extra work to get financial insights—they’re just a natural part of how Innovint manages your operations.
Example: Small Winery, Big Insight
Let’s say you run a 2,000-case winery and primarily sell through the tasting room and club channels. You’ve always set your prices based on what similar wineries in your region charge.
After using Innovint for a year, you discover that your flagship Pinot Noir is generating a gross margin of just 30%—much lower than expected once labor, packaging, and club discounts are factored in. This insight reveals that while sales appear strong, your profitability is under pressure.
Armed with this information, you decide to:
- Increase your retail price to improve your gross margin
- Introduce a tiered discount model for club members to preserve loyalty while protecting profitability
- Reevaluate vineyard sourcing to bring down production costs and raise overall margin
Over the next vintage, Innovint helps you track the impact of these decisions. As a result, your gross margin on that wine climbs to 50%, improving your bottom line—without sacrificing customer retention.
Innovint: A Smarter Way to Run Your Winery
Innovint isn’t just a tool for winemaking logistics—it’s a business partner that helps you run a smarter, more profitable operation. For winery professionals, Innovint makes it easy to understand:
- What does your wine cost to make
- How to price it for sustainable profit
- How to forecast production and inventory
- How to grow your business with confidence
Whether you’re managing 500 or 50,000 cases, Innovint gives you the financial clarity to make better decisions—without needing to become a financial expert.
If you’re looking to strengthen your winery’s pricing and forecasting practices, Innovint is a great place to start.
Ready to Take Control of Your Pricing and Forecasting?
If your winery struggles with setting the right prices or accurately forecasting production, Innovint can give you the tools and clarity you need. By tracking actual production costs, streamlining data entry, and delivering real-time inventory and yield insights, Innovint empowers winery owners to make more intelligent pricing decisions and plan more effectively for the future.Want to learn more? Reach out to Protea Financial to discover how Innovint can help your winery gain additional insights into its profitability and streamline its planning process.
