Harvest Cost & Profit Estimator
Know your true cost per ounce — and whether this grow was worth it. Enter yield, costs, and dispensary or market price to get total cost, cost per oz, net savings or profit, breakeven price, and efficiency metrics like grams per watt. Works for both personal use (savings vs dispensary) and hypothetical sale scenarios.
Calculate your true cost per ounce
Total dry trimmed weight. Use the Harvest Yield Planner if you don't have actual weight yet.
What you would pay per gram at a dispensary for equivalent quality.
Operating costs (this cycle)
kWh × your rate × cycle days. Check your meter or bill.
Estimate: hrs per week × weeks × hourly rate you value your time at.
Equipment amortization
Efficiency inputs
What this mode calculates
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Select personal use or sale scenario above.
Common cost accounting mistakes
- Forgetting equipment amortization. Most growers only count operating costs — nutrients, electricity, seeds. But the tent, lights, fans, and meters have a real cost per grow. Enable Pro mode and enter your total setup cost to see the real picture.
- Ignoring electricity. A 600W LED running 18/6 for 80 days uses ~720 kWh. At $0.15/kWh that's $108 — often the largest single operating cost after equipment amortization. Check your electric bill or meter.
- Using retail oz price as the reference. Dispensary retail and bulk market prices differ by 50–70%. If you're growing for personal use, use the price you actually pay at retail for the quality you'd buy. If you're modeling a sale scenario, use realistic bulk or wholesale prices.
- Not counting trim labor. A 400g dry harvest takes 6–10 hours to trim dry. At $15/hr that's $90–150 of labor value. For personal use this is invisible, but for any sale scenario, unaccounted labor is the difference between a profitable and unprofitable operation.
Net savings
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Total cost
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Cost per oz
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Breakeven price
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per oz
Total value
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Cost breakdown
Get your true cost per ounce in four steps
Choose personal use or sale scenario
Most home growers use Personal use mode — it compares grow cost against what you would have spent buying equivalent quality at a dispensary. The "net savings" output shows how much this grow saved you. If you're modeling a sale or gift scenario, switch to Sale mode — it uses a market or wholesale price to calculate actual revenue and profit. Use realistic bulk prices in sale mode, not retail dispensary prices.
Enter dry yield and reference price
Dry yield is your total trimmed weight in grams. Use the Harvest Yield Planner if you haven't weighed yet — it estimates dry weight from wet weight. For reference price, enter what you actually pay at your local dispensary for comparable quality (or use a market price for sale mode). These two numbers drive everything else.
Enter all operating costs honestly
The most common mistake is forgetting electricity. A 600W LED running 18/6 for 80 days uses ~720 kWh — at $0.15/kWh that's $108. Check your electric bill or meter rather than estimating. Include nutrients, seeds, consumables (media, pH solutions), and labor if you're valuing your time. Don't skip categories — incomplete costs produce an optimistic cost-per-oz that doesn't reflect reality.
Use Pro mode for equipment amortization and efficiency metrics
Enable Pro mode to add equipment amortization (total setup cost ÷ expected number of grows) — this is the biggest cost variable most growers miss. Also enables grams-per-watt and grams-per-sq-ft efficiency metrics that let you compare this cycle against previous grows. These numbers are how you measure whether your setup is actually improving over time.
Why cost-per-oz matters more than net savings
Net savings depends on how much you grow — a 1,000g harvest will always show a bigger net savings number than a 200g harvest regardless of efficiency. Cost-per-oz tells you how efficiently your grow is operating regardless of scale. Experienced growers track cost-per-oz across cycles: improving from $35/oz to $18/oz over 10 grows is a real efficiency signal. Net savings is the bottom line; cost-per-oz is the diagnostic. The grams-per-watt metric is similar — it tells you how well your lighting is converting electricity to flower, which is the right metric for evaluating a light upgrade.
Equipment amortization, efficiency metrics, and why electricity is usually the biggest variable
Most growers know their nutrient cost and seed cost but underestimate or ignore electricity and equipment amortization — which together often exceed all other costs combined. Understanding where the money actually goes lets you make better decisions about equipment upgrades, grow cycle length, and training methods.
$50–100
Typical electricity per cycle
A 600W LED running 18/6 for 80 days uses ~720 kWh. At national average of $0.15/kWh, that's $108. Your rate may be higher — check your bill.
0.5–1.0g
Grams per watt benchmark
0.5 g/W is achievable for most setups. 1.0 g/W is strong performance. Above 1.0 g/W requires dialed environment, excellent genetics, and experienced technique.
10–20
Grows to recover equipment cost
A $500 setup at $25–50/cycle savings over dispensary price recovers its cost in 10–20 grows. After that point, every grow is free equipment.
Where the money actually goes in a typical home grow
| Cost category | Typical range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Equipment (amortized) | $30–100/cycle | Setup cost ÷ lifespan. Biggest variable for new growers, near zero for experienced ones. LEDs last 50,000 hrs — many grow cycles. |
| Electricity | $60–200/cycle | Largest recurring operating cost. Scales with wattage, hours, and local rate. HPS costs 2× more than LED for same yield. |
| Nutrients | $30–100/cycle | Varies widely: basic single-part nutrients $20/cycle, premium multi-part programs $80–150. Organic programs often cost more but deliver comparable results. |
| Seeds / clones | $10–60/cycle | Premium feminized seeds $10–20 each. Clones from a known mother: effectively free after the first cycle. |
| Consumables | $15–50/cycle | Growing media, pots, pH solutions, pest prevention. Coco or soil mixes add cost; living soil is expensive upfront but reusable for 2–3 cycles. |
| Labor | $0–200/cycle | Often ignored for personal grows. Trim alone is 5–15 hours. If you value your time at $15–25/hr, this is a significant line item for honest accounting. |
Grams per watt — the most useful efficiency benchmark
Grams per watt (g/W) measures how efficiently your lighting converts electricity to flower. It accounts for both the quality of your light and the quality of your grow — poor VPD, incorrect nutrition, or suboptimal training all reduce g/W even with excellent lighting. It's the single best metric for comparing grows and evaluating whether an equipment upgrade is justified.
A 600W LED at 0.5 g/W produces 300g — viable for a 4×4. The same light at 0.8 g/W produces 480g — a 60% yield increase with identical electricity cost. The gap between 0.5 and 0.8 g/W is entirely environmental and technique, not equipment. Before spending money on a better light, optimize the grow that's already happening. If you're already at 0.8+ g/W consistently, an LED upgrade is a meaningful investment. If you're at 0.4 g/W, fix environment and nutrition before spending on hardware.
The case for using clones over seeds after the first grow
Premium feminized seeds cost $10–20 each. A seed order of 5 seeds for a 4-plant grow runs $50–80 per cycle. Taking clones from a known mother: effectively free. Clones also produce more uniform plants with known phenotype, faster veg time (no seedling phase), and predictable harvest windows. The only real cost of a clone program is mother plant maintenance — which is typically one plant in a small veg space under 18/6. For growers doing 3+ grows per year, switching to clones from a proven strain is the single most reliable way to reduce cost-per-oz after the first grow.
Common cost and profit questions
Is it actually cheaper to grow your own?
After the first 2–3 grows, yes — usually significantly. First grow often breaks even or shows a small loss because of equipment setup costs. By grow 5–10, amortized equipment cost per cycle drops to $30–60 and operating costs are well understood. At that point, most home growers with a 4×4 setup and 400g dry yield produce flower at $15–25/oz — versus $30–60/oz at a mid-tier dispensary for comparable quality. At 8 grows per year, that's a meaningful annual savings. The break-even point depends on how much you consume and your local dispensary prices — use this tool to calculate your specific break-even number of grows.
How do I calculate my electricity cost?
Formula: (Watts ÷ 1000) × hours per day × days × $/kWh = electricity cost. For a 600W LED running 18 hours/day for 80 days at $0.15/kWh: (600 ÷ 1000) × 18 × 80 × $0.15 = $129.60. Add flower phase: (600 ÷ 1000) × 12 × 63 × $0.15 = $68.04 for a 9-week flower at 12/12. Total for the cycle: ~$198. Check your actual electricity rate on your bill — rates vary from $0.08 (parts of the South) to $0.30+ (California, Hawaii). The difference is a 3-4× swing in electricity cost for the same grow.
What does "equipment amortization" mean and should I include it?
Amortization means spreading a large one-time cost across multiple periods. If you spent $600 on a grow setup and expect to use it for 20 grows, the amortized cost is $30 per grow. Whether to include it depends on what question you're answering. "How much did this specific grow cost me out of pocket?" — don't include it (you already spent that money). "What is my true fully-loaded cost per ounce?" — include it. For most home growers tracking efficiency over time, the fully-loaded cost including equipment amortization is the honest number.
What's a good grams-per-watt number?
0.5 g/W is the benchmark for a competent home grow with quality LED lighting. 0.7–0.8 g/W indicates a well-dialed environment with good training. 1.0+ g/W is strong performance that requires optimized environment (VPD, CO₂, nutrition) and experienced technique. If you're below 0.4 g/W, something is significantly limiting yield — check VPD, nutrition, light intensity, or training. Improving from 0.4 to 0.7 g/W on a 600W setup adds 180g to your harvest — about $1,440 in dispensary value at $8/g. That's a much better ROI than buying a better light.
Should I include labor in the cost calculation?
For personal use: include it if you want to understand the true economic value of the hobby. Most people don't, because they enjoy the work — it's not a real cost in the opportunity cost sense if the alternative is watching TV, not earning money. For sale scenarios: absolutely include it. Trim labor alone at $15/hr for 8 hours is $120. Without accounting for labor, your "profit" number significantly overstates the economics of a sale operation. The labor field is marked optional for a reason — include it for honest accounting, leave it out if you're just tracking cash outlay.
What reference price should I use?
Personal use: the actual price you pay at your dispensary for the quality tier you'd buy. Don't use premium flower price if you'd buy mid-shelf. Don't use the highest price on the menu. Use what you actually spend per gram at retail. Sale scenario: use realistic market price for your situation — bulk or wholesale is typically 40–60% below retail dispensary price. Retail ounce prices at dispensaries include significant overhead (retail markup, compliance, testing, staff). If you're modeling a peer-to-peer sale or craft market, use a number that reflects actual transaction prices in your area, not dispensary retail.
How do I reduce cost per ounce?
In priority order: (1) Improve yield — the same fixed costs spread over more grams produces lower cost-per-gram. Focus on VPD, training, and light intensity before anything else. (2) Switch to clones — eliminates seed cost every cycle. (3) Optimize electricity — HPS to LED conversion typically halves electricity cost. (4) Simplify nutrients — many premium multi-part programs don't produce meaningfully better results than simpler programs at 30% of the cost. (5) Amortize equipment over more cycles — equipment cost drops with each additional grow. Most growers overestimate the impact of switching nutrients and underestimate the impact of improving yield efficiency.
Gear that reduces cost per ounce
The fastest way to lower cost-per-oz is to increase yield with the same fixed costs. These products have the highest impact on yield efficiency — the metric that actually moves cost-per-oz.
LED grow lights
Full-spectrum LED panels ($150–600+). HPS-to-LED conversion is the single highest-ROI equipment decision for most home growers — halves electricity cost while matching or exceeding yields. A 600W LED replacing a 1000W HPS saves $100–200/cycle in electricity alone while running cooler and requiring less HVAC. The PPFD/DLI Calculator helps verify your specific LED hits target intensity at your canopy height.
pH & EC meters
Combo pH/EC meters ($25–60), dedicated EC pens ($20–40), calibration solutions. pH and EC problems are the most common cause of yield-killing deficiencies — and they're completely invisible without a meter. A $30 pH meter can recover 20–30% of lost yield from uncorrected pH issues. Highest yield-per-dollar of any tool in the grow room after lighting.
Climate controllers
VPD-reading controllers ($60–200), temp/RH controllers ($40–120), CO₂ controllers ($150+). Dialing VPD into the 0.8–1.2 kPa range in veg and 1.2–1.6 kPa in flower is one of the most reliable ways to improve grams-per-watt. A well-tuned environment adds 15–25% to yield without any other change.
Cloning supplies
Aeroponic cloners ($60–150), Rapid Rooters ($10–15), rooting gel ($8–15). Switching from seeds to clones eliminates $30–80 in seed cost every cycle and removes phenotype variance. After 3–5 grows with a strain you like, taking clones from a known mother is the most reliable way to lock in consistent yield and quality at lower cost.
Simplified nutrient systems
2-part and 3-part nutrient systems ($30–80 for a full cycle). Premium multi-part programs often cost $100–200/cycle without proportionally better results. A well-formulated 2-part system at $40/cycle produces comparable yield when paired with correct EC management. Check cost vs yield, not cost vs ingredients.
Light meters (PPFD)
Handheld PPFD meters ($50–200). Without a light meter, you're guessing whether your canopy is getting the right intensity — too low leaves yield on the table, too high causes bleaching and light stress. The PPFD/DLI Calculator paired with a meter measurement lets you verify and optimize light intensity for your specific setup.