U-pick pricing calculator
What should I charge for pick-your-own, compared with my pre-picked price?
Showing for United States
U-pick price per unit
—
- What a visitor saves per unit against pre-picked
- —
- Picking labour per unit
- —
- U-pick discount (% of the pre-picked price)
- —
- Part of the price that covers spoiled fruit
- —
Prices are rounded up to the cent, so you never collect less than the figures cover.
Use one unit throughout: the price, the picking rate and what visitors pick are all per pound, per kilo or per basket.
The loss allowance is fruit visitors spoil, drop or leave for every 100 units they take home, valued at what it would have earned you after picking.
Admission per visitor that covers the day
—
- Or add this to the price of each unit
- —
- Visitors needed at your admission charge
- —
- Units picked that day
- —
Prices are rounded up to the cent, so you never collect less than the figures cover.
Only what opening for the day costs goes here. Costs for the whole season, such as plants and land, belong in the break-even calculator. Charge the admission or add the amount per unit, not both.
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 should I charge for pick-your-own, compared with my pre-picked price?"
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
An hour of picking is worth your pre-picked price times the units a picker harvests in an hour, less the picker's hourly wage. The u-pick price is that, times 100 plus the loss percent, divided by the units an hour times 100, rounded up to the cent. The labour per unit is the wage divided by the units picked in an hour. For a u-pick day, the admission that breaks even is the day's fixed costs divided by the visitors, rounded up to the cent; built into the price instead, it is the day's fixed costs divided by the visitors times the units each one picks, rounded up to the cent. The visitors a chosen admission needs are the fixed costs divided by the admission, rounded up to a whole visitor.
A worked example
Example numbers only; use your own. You sell picked strawberries at 4.00 a pound. A picker earns 15.00 an hour and picks 20 pounds an hour, so picking costs you 0.75 a pound. Visitors spoil about 10 percent more than they take home. Charge 3.58 a pound for pick-your-own: visitors save 0.42 a pound, or 10.50 percent, and 0.33 of the price covers the spoiled fruit. If a pick day costs 450.00 to open and 120 visitors pick 4.5 pounds each, an admission of 3.75 covers it, or add 0.84 to every pound; at an admission of 5.00 you need 90 visitors.
Nothing you type here is saved.