How to Price Tomatoes at the Market, With a Calculator

To price a pound of tomatoes you add up its full cost first: the plants, compost and stakes, a week's share by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the basket or bag, and a share of overhead like rent and power. That's what one pound 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 pound of field tomatoes that costs $0.85 to make, a 60% margin after 3% fees means $2.29, rounded up to $2.50. At peak season the plants yield more than the market can sell, so the price has to cover the pounds you compost. Restaurants buy by the case at a wholesale price, set so it still covers the full cost with something left. In the example below, a market garden prices its tomatoes for a Saturday market and two restaurants.

The short version

• Full cost = growing costs a pound + your time + basket + 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 the season's growing costs over the pounds you harvest.
• Price heirlooms on their own; they yield less.
• Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
• TaroStack keeps each harvest as a lot and every sale with its customer. More below.

What goes into a pound's cost

What a market garden looks like over a year is in market garden business plan, and tracking the stand in farmers market sales tracker.

An example: a pound at peak season

Little Sugar Creek Garden, the made-up market garden in Bentonville, Arkansas, harvests about 400 pounds of field tomatoes a week at peak from 300 plants:

At a 60% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $0.85 ÷ 0.37 = $2.29, so $2.50. At $2.50 a pound, each leaves $1.58. It had been asking $3.50, which leaves $2.55, and kept $3.50 for slicers, with heirlooms at $5. Two restaurants buy 20-pound cases at $2.00 a pound, which leaves $1.09. Seconds go for sauce at $1.50. Selling from the farm is in how to start a farm stand.

Get the calculator

Download the tomato price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's growing costs, amounts and costs, the pounds it makes, the hands-on minutes, the basket 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 a pound in a good week. A week of blight or split fruit after rain changes the pounds that come in, and every pound left costs more.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack keeps each harvest as a lot and every sale with its customer and date.

Harvests as lots. Each picking is received as a lot with its date and weight.

Sales by customer. Market sales and restaurant cases are recorded with their lot.

Waste with a reason. Split and unsold fruit is recorded as waste with a reason.

Lots, sales and waste records 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 charge for tomatoes?

Work out the full cost, growing costs, harvest time, baskets and market fees, then divide by 1 minus your margin and fee rate; the example's $0.85 pound prices at $2.50 for a 60% margin.

How do you calculate the cost of tomatoes?

Add the batch's growing costs and divide by the pounds it makes, then add your time, the basket and a share of overhead.

What is a good profit margin on pounds?

Set your own target after fees; the example uses 60% on direct sales and accepts less on wholesale.

How much should I charge restaurants for tomatoes?

Enough to cover the full cost with something left; the example's $2.00 a pound by the case leaves $1.09.