How to Price Succulents for Sale, With a Calculator

To price succulents, cost a tray from the cutting to the sale: the pots, the mix, the top dressing and label, a share of the mother plants, the time to pot them up and the weeks of watering and turning, and the ones that rot or never root. Then price for the margin you want after card fees. Price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − fees). In the example below, 100 succulents grown from cuttings in 2-inch pots use $38 of supplies and four and a half hours of work, and 90 make it to sale, so each costs $1.72. At a 55% margin after 3% fees, that's $4.10, rounded up to $4.25; the $4 a market will bear leaves $2.16. A garden center at $2 leaves 22 cents. Below is a tray's cost, the losses, the price, arrangements, garden centers, and a free calculator.

The short version

• Cost a tray: pots, mix, top dressing, labels, and a share of the mother plants the cuttings came from.
• Count the time: potting up, then weeks of watering, turning and weeding.
• Divide by the plants you sell, not the cuttings you started.
• Price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − card fees), rounded up to a quarter.
• Arrangements in pottery sell on the pot and the design time.
• Garden centers pay about half retail; small pots barely cover it.
• TaroStack counts every tray from cutting to sale, with the losses recorded. More below.

What a tray costs

Mission Bay Succulents, a made-up succulent grower in San Diego, California, I use in these examples, grows echeverias, sedums and jade from leaf and stem cuttings off its own mother plants:

Potting up takes about a minute and a half a plant, and two hours of watering and turning over the weeks it takes to root and fill the pot: 270 minutes, $90 at $20 an hour.

The losses

Ten in a hundred rot, stretch or never root. The tray's cost is spread over the 90 that sell:

The cuttings themselves are cheap; the time is most of a succulent's cost. How nurseries keep count of what's growing is in nursery inventory spreadsheet.

The price

A three-for price at a market moves small pots without going near the floor. Bigger pots and rarer varieties take longer to grow and sell for more; price them from their own trays. The same method for gallon perennials is in how to price plants.

Arrangements

An arrangement in a ceramic pot sells on the pot and the design. A $6 pot, five succulents at $1.42 each before packing, 60 cents of mix and top dressing, 15 minutes of arranging, and 80 cents of wrap and overhead come to $19.50. At a 45% margin after fees, that's $37.50, so $38. Arrangements are where a succulent grower's margin grows, because the design time earns more than growing another tray.

Garden centers and wholesale

A garden center at $2 for a 2-inch pot leaves 22 cents after the time is paid, which only works for trays grown in bigger runs with less handling. Price wholesale from bigger pots and arrangements instead. How to set wholesale terms is in how to price handmade items for wholesale.

Get the calculator

Download the succulent pricing calculator. Type a tray's pots, mix, top dressing, labels and cuttings, the plants you expect to sell, the minutes of potting and care, overhead, your hourly rate, card fees, the margin you want, a wholesale price and a price to test; it works out the full cost of a succulent, the price for your margin rounded up to a quarter, and what each price leaves. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Where this stops working

Dozens of varieties, trays started every few weeks, plants moving from propagation to the sales table, and arrangements made from whatever's ready. A calculator prices a tray; it doesn't follow fifty of them, or say which plants have sat on the bench too long.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack counts every tray from cutting to sale, with the losses recorded.

Each tray a batch. Potting up a tray is a batch that takes the pots, mix and labels off stock and gives the plants a lot and a date, and the plants that came out good and those that failed are recorded, so each tray's real cost shows.

Arrangements as recipes. An arrangement is a recipe of a pot, five succulents, mix and top dressing, so making one takes them off stock, and "what could I make right now" says how many the ready plants allow.

Losses with a reason. Plants lost later leave stock as adjustments with a reason, so shrink is a number by variety.

Batches, recipes and adjustments 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.

Questions people also ask

How much should I sell succulents for?

Above your floor and near local prices. In the example, a 2-inch succulent grown from a cutting costs $1.72, the floor is $4.25, and markets pay about $4.

How do you price succulent arrangements?

Add the pot, the plants at what they cost to grow, the mix and the design time. In the example, an arrangement costs $19.50 and sells for $38.

How do you price succulent cuttings?

Cuttings have no pot or mix, so they're mostly the mother plant's share and the time to take and pack them; a few cents of plant and a minute of work each.

Can you sell succulents to garden centers?

Yes, but a 2-inch pot at $2 leaves 22 cents in the example. Bigger pots and arrangements make better wholesale lines.