Free tool
How long your CSA harvest morning really takes
Enter the boxes, the items in each one, and the seconds a single item takes to harvest and pack, and see whether the crew you have finishes before the first member arrives.
Free tool, no sign up
What your CSA share price actually has to cover
Enter the share price, the member count, the season length, your fixed costs, and the crew minutes each box takes, and see the cost per box and the break even member count.
Most CSA farms set a share price by looking at the farm down the road and adding or subtracting a little. That gets you into the right neighborhood and tells you nothing about whether the season pays. The honest version starts at the box: what one box costs you to fill, counting the fixed costs of the whole operation and the crew minutes that go into harvesting, washing, and packing it.
The input that decides everything here is the pack minutes per box. Farms guess low almost every time, because they remember the pack line and forget the harvest, the wash, the bunching, and the twenty minutes somebody spent chasing the missing tote. Time one real harvest day, divide by boxes, and put that number in. If the result makes you uncomfortable, that discomfort is the actual finding.
Your result
Season share revenue
$84,000
Gross income from shares before add ons and market sales.
Season harvest and pack labor
$32,340
What the crew hours behind the boxes cost across the whole season.
Cost to fill one box
$30.43
Fixed costs and pack labor spread over every box you deliver.
Break even member count
112
Members needed before the season covers its fixed costs.
Compare the cost to fill one box with your share price divided by delivery weeks, and if the gap is thin the season is paying you nothing for weather risk.
Why the crew minutes matter more than the price
Raise the share price by fifty dollars and the season revenue moves by the member count times fifty. Cut five minutes of crew time per box and the saving repeats every box, every week, for the whole season. On a hundred and twenty member farm running twenty two weeks, five minutes is over two hundred and twenty crew hours. That is a hire you do not have to make in July.
This is why the same calculator that looks like a pricing tool is really a labor tool. The crops that eat minutes are usually obvious once you time them: bunched greens that need washing twice, cherry tomatoes picked into pints, salad mix that has to be triple washed and spun. Nobody is saying cut them. But know what each one costs a box before you promise it every week in the share calendar.
Where the break even number should change your season
The break even member count is the number to check in February, not August. If it lands above the members you can realistically sign, the fix is upstream: fewer delivery weeks, a smaller box, a higher price, or fixed costs you can actually cut. All four are winter decisions. None of them can be made in the middle of a season already sold.
It is also the number to bring to a lender or a landlord. A CSA farm that can say it needs a hundred and twelve members to cover fixed costs, holds a hundred and twenty, and knows what each additional member contributes is having a different conversation than a farm quoting last year gross sales. Print the result with your assumptions written next to it.
Questions about this calculator
Should add on shares like eggs or bread go in this calculation?
Leave them out of the share price and members fields. Add ons carry their own cost and their own margin, and mixing them in hides whether the vegetable share stands on its own. Run the calculator on the core share first, then look at add ons separately.
What belongs in fixed and material costs?
Everything that does not scale with the number of boxes you pack: seed, potting mix, amendments, row cover, fuel, insurance, land payments, equipment repair, packaging bought in bulk, and any salaried or owner pay you intend to take. Hourly harvest labor stays out because the crew minutes field already counts it.
Our members pay in installments. Does that break the math?
No. The calculator works in season totals, so enter the full season price a member pays regardless of how it arrives. Installments change your cash flow timing, which matters for spring purchases, but they do not change what a box costs to fill or what the season needs to break even.
More free tools and working documents
Working document
The weekly CSA box plan and member note template
One page per week that carries your availability list, the box plan for every variant, the substitution you made, and the note that goes to members before harvest starts.
Now put that figure against twenty two weeks
A calculator gives you one result for one set of inputs. A season hands you a new set every Sunday, each with its own availability walk and its own substitution to explain. Ask for a demo and we will show you how CropShareBox carries this number forward week after week, so the pack out that works in May still lands before pickup in the middle of August.