Plant start price calculator
What does each seedling cost me, and what should I charge per plant or pack?
Showing for United States
Cost per saleable plant
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- Cost per tray
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- Plants to sell per tray
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- Cells lost per tray
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- Your time, at your wage
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Only whole plants can be sold, so the plants that come through are rounded down, and the whole tray's cost falls on them.
Enter every cost for one tray. For heat and light, divide the season's bill by the trays it warmed.
Some places have rules for selling plants, such as labelling or plant health checks. This calculator works out money only.
Price per plant for your margin
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- Price per pack for your margin
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- Cost per saleable plant
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- Takings per tray, sold singly
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- Profit per tray
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- Plants to sell per tray
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- Your time, at your wage
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Only whole plants can be sold, so the plants that come through are rounded down, and the whole tray's cost falls on them.
Prices are rounded up to the cent, so you never keep less than the margin you asked for.
A pack is priced from the cost of the plants in it, so it can come to a cent or two less than the plant price times the pack size.
Some places have rules for selling plants, such as labelling or plant health checks. This calculator works out money only.
Enter your numbers to see the result.
Planning a farm stand, a CSA or a shop? TallyTill is free to start.
Get started with TallyTill for freeUse this calculator in an AI chat
You can ask Claude, ChatGPT or another AI app to work this out for you, and this calculator opens right inside the chat. You connect TallyTill to your AI app once. It is free, and there is no account and no sign-in.
AI apps call add-ons like this connectors, apps or MCP servers. They all mean the same thing: a way for the AI to use a tool someone else made.
1. Copy this address
2. Add it to your AI app
Claude (claude.ai and the Claude desktop app)
- Open Customize, then Connectors.
- Press + Add, then Add custom connector.
- Name it TallyTill calculators, paste the address and press Continue.
- Under Authentication choose No sign in, then press Add.
- In a new chat, press + at the bottom left, choose Connectors and switch TallyTill calculators on.
On Claude's free plan you can add one custom connector.
ChatGPT
- In Settings, turn on Developer mode. OpenAI moves this switch from time to time; it is usually with the settings for apps and connectors.
- Add a new connector (ChatGPT may call it an app), paste the address and choose No authentication.
- In a new chat, choose TallyTill from the tools menu, or type @ and pick it.
Not every ChatGPT plan lets you add your own connector. If you cannot find the option, your plan may not include it.
Using another AI app? Look in its settings for MCP, add the address as a remote server, and choose no sign-in.
3. Ask your question
Say "use TallyTill", so the AI uses the calculator instead of doing the sum itself. For example:
"Use TallyTill: What does each seedling cost me, and what should I charge per plant or pack?"
What you will see
- The calculator opens in the chat with the numbers you gave already filled in. Change any number and the answer updates.
- If a number is missing, the box is highlighted, or the AI asks you for it in plain words.
- The answer links back to this page, so you can check the working.
- The first time, your AI app asks if it may use TallyTill. Choose Allow.
The calculators take numbers only. They never ask for your name, your email or a password.
How this is worked out
A tray's cost is the tray or pots, potting mix, seed, its share of heat and light, and other costs, plus your minutes times your hourly wage divided by 60 if you enter both. The plants you can sell are the cells times the share that comes up times the share that makes it, rounded down to whole plants. The cost per plant is the tray's cost divided by those plants. The price for a margin is the cost per plant divided by one minus the margin, rounded up to the cent; a pack is priced the same way from the cost of the plants in it.
A worked example
Example numbers only; use your own. A 72-cell tray where 90 percent of the seeds come up and 95 percent of those make it gives 61 plants to sell. It costs 3.00 for the tray, 4.50 of potting mix, 2.25 of seed, 3.60 of heat and light, 1.20 of labels and 45 minutes at 16.00 an hour (12.00): 26.55 in all, or 0.44 a plant. For a 50 percent margin, charge 0.88 a plant or 5.23 for a pack of 6.
Nothing you type here is saved.