To price a choose-and-cut Fraser fir you add up its full cost first: the seedlings, fertilizer and mowing over the years a tree grows by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the netting and tag, and a share of overhead like rent and power. That's what one tree costs you. Then set the price so that, after card and selling fees, it leaves the margin you want: price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − fee rate). For a 7-foot Fraser fir that costs $38.64 to make, a 45% margin after 3% fees means $74.31, rounded up to $75.00. A tree takes about eight years, and the hand work over those years, shearing it into shape every summer, is most of its cost. Lots buy by the truckload at a much lower price, which may not cover the full cost; that's worth knowing before saying yes. In the example below, a North Carolina tree farm prices its choose-and-cut trees and checks a lot's offer.
The short version
- Full cost = inputs a tree + your time + netting and tag + overhead.
- Price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − fee rate).
- Count your time at a real hourly rate, even if you don't pay yourself yet.
- Spread eight years of inputs and shearing over the trees you sell.
- Count the trees that never make it in the cost of the ones that do.
- Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
- TaroStack keeps each season's trees as a lot, with what it cost. More below.
What goes into a tree's cost
| Part | How to count it |
|---|---|
| Seedlings, fertilizer and mowing | The batch's cost ÷ trees a batch |
| Your time | Hands-on minutes for the batch ÷ trees × your hourly rate |
| Netting and tag | Per tree |
| Overhead | Rent, power, tools, spread over the trees you make |
| Fees | Card and market fees as a share of the price |
The farm's year is in christmas tree farm business plan, and its wreaths in how to price wreaths.
An example: a 7-foot Fraser fir
Grandview Fraser Fir Farm, the made-up Christmas tree farm near Boone, North Carolina, I use in these examples, plants 1,200 seedlings for every 1,000 trees it sells eight years later; about 85 minutes of shearing, planting and harvest go into each tree:
| A block of 1,000 trees | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Seedlings, with losses | 1200 | $960.00 |
| Fertilizer and lime, eight years | $2,400.00 | |
| Mowing and weed control, eight years | $3,200.00 | |
| A batch | $6,560.00 |
| A tree | Cost |
|---|---|
| Seedlings, fertilizer and mowing, $6,560.00 ÷ 1000 | $6.56 |
| Time, 85,000 minutes for the batch at $20 an hour ÷ 1000 | $28.33 |
| Netting and tag | $0.75 |
| Overhead | $3.00 |
| Full cost | $38.64 |
At a 45% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $38.64 ÷ 0.52 = $74.31, so $75.00. At $75.00 a tree, each leaves $34.11. It had been charging $70.00, which leaves $29.26, and moved up. A lot offered $35.00 a tree, which leaves −$4.69 against the full cost: the lot takes trees customers passed over, which would otherwise be chipped, so the farm sells them, knowing they pay back the field's inputs but not the hours. Pricing by the foot works the same way, with the full cost of a taller tree higher because it grew longer; setting prices on the farm itself is in farm stand prices.
Get the calculator
Download the Christmas tree price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's inputs, amounts and costs, the trees it makes, the hands-on minutes, the netting and overhead, your hourly rate, card fees and the margin you want; the full cost, the price for your margin rounded up, and what a wholesale price and a test price leave fill in. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
The calculator prices one tree on paper. A dry year that kills a quarter of the seedlings, a summer of shearing done late, and a block that grew unevenly change what each tree really cost, eight years later.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each season's trees as a lot, with what it cost to grow.
Inputs received. Seed, fertilizer and supplies are received with their supplier and price, so the season's cost is on record.
Each harvest a lot. Each harvest goes in as a lot of trees, counted where it's kept.
Orders by customer. Retail days, wholesale orders and lots are sales orders, with the lots each one took.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| What the season cost | Receipts in a folder | Inputs received by supplier |
| Trees left | Counted in the field | Stock by lot |
| Who bought what | A notebook | Sales by customer |
Receiving, lots and sales orders are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.