Is Selling Lavender Profitable? The Margins, Worked Out

Yes, once the plants are established, and most of all when the lavender is turned into products. A dried bundle keeps most of its price; sachets, culinary tins and gift sets keep as much or more, because a little dried lavender goes a long way. What the products don't show is the three years it takes the plants to mature, and a short harvest. Margin = (price − cost) ÷ price. In the example below, a dried bundle costs $2.43 to make and sell and goes for $12.00, a 79.8% margin. A summer month of four products brings $8,470 of sales and about $6,460 of gross profit.

The short version

• Margin = (price − cost) ÷ price; markup = (price − cost) ÷ cost.
• Count your time as a cost, even if you don't pay yourself yet.
• A dried bundle: $2.43, $12.00, 79.8%.
• Plants take about three years to mature.
• A little dried lavender fills many sachets and tins.
• Gift sets keep the most in dollars.
• TaroStack costs each product from what each batch used. More below.

A bundle, costed

Boardman Valley Lavender, the made-up lavender farm near Traverse City, Michigan, I use in these examples, sells dried bundles, sachets, culinary lavender and gift sets from its farm store and website:

The farm's year, with the three years before it, is in lavender farm business plan, and margin against markup in markup vs margin.

Margins by channel

The sachets keep 77.4% and the tins 71.4%; the gift set keeps 72.2%, the most dollars a sale.

A month's numbers

A July for Boardman Valley Lavender:

Bundles bring the most gross profit in July; gift sets carry the website in November and December. Culinary lavender is sold as a food and labeled like one. Another farm that turns a crop into products is in christmas tree farm business plan.

Get the calculator

Download the lavender margin calculator. One sheet: one line for each product and channel, with its price, materials, packaging, labor and fee rate; the cost, gross profit, margin, markup and the price your target margin needs 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 holds one harvest. A wet June that cuts the harvest, a winter that kills some plants, and a gift set that sells out in a week change the year.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack costs each bundle from what each batch used, so margins sit on real cost.

True cost from the batch. Each batch takes dried lavender and packaging at the price of the deliveries they came from, so a price rise shows in the next batch's cost.

Labor on the batch. The minutes a batch took are recorded on it, so the hours behind each product are on record.

Margins by product. Margins are reported per product on that actual cost, and a price-creep report per supplier shows whose prices moved.

Recipes, batches, costing and margin reports 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

Is selling lavender profitable?

It can be: in the example, the main product keeps 79.8% after its full cost, and a month of $8,470 in sales leaves about $6,460 of gross profit before fixed costs and the owner's pay.

What is a good profit margin on lavender?

In the example, 79.8% on the main product sold direct; wholesale and fundraiser prices keep less, so the mix matters.

How long until a lavender farm is profitable?

The plants take about three years to mature; the example's margins are for a mature field.

What lavender products make the most money?

In the example, gift sets bring the most per sale and bundles the most in a summer month.