The cost sits on the load, not on the sale
This is the one structural fact that makes a market stall different from a shop. In a shop, the cost of goods follows the sale: sell nothing, spend nothing. At a market you commit the whole load before you know anything, and the fee, the fuel and the hours are committed with it. So the arithmetic runs backwards from the usual break-even: the denominator is the retail value of what is on the table, not the retail value of what leaves it.
At the defaults the load is worth $732 at the prices entered and cost $210.20 to grow. The day itself — a $45 fee, 34 miles at 55 cents, nine paid hours at $17 and $12 of consumables — comes to $228.70. Between them that is $438.90 to recover, and with 1.82 percent coming off the top of sales, the takings needed are $447.04. Against a $732 load that is 61.1 percent.
The number that never shows up in the takings
The entered sell-throughs put 102 of 154 units across the table for $495, which clears the day by $47.09. That looks like a fine Saturday. But 52 units went home, and growing them cost $66.80 — more than the day cleared. Nothing in the cash box tells you this happened. The till shows $495 either way, whether you brought 154 units or only the 102 that sold.
This is the argument for measuring sell-through crop by crop rather than looking at the total. In the default table the tomatoes carry it: 60 loaded, 33 sold, $37.80 of cost driven home, and once the day costs and fees are split across the crops by the value each took up on the table, that line comes out $15.73 down. The basil is $0.47 down as well. The salad, at 85 percent sell-through, is $51.31 up and is paying for both. Whether the right response is to load fewer tomatoes, price them differently, or accept it as the cost of a table that looks full is your decision — the calculator only makes the size of it visible.
Sell-through beats price
Run the defaults again with two and a half points added to every line and the day clears $60.84 instead of $47.09 — $13.75 better, or about $5.50 a point. Put five percent on every price instead and it clears $71.39, which is $24.30 better and looks like the stronger move. But five percent on price that costs you three points of sell-through lands at $41.49, which is $5.60 worse than doing nothing at all. That trade is worth thinking about before the price signs get written.
The table below is the shipped calculator run at a uniform sell-through across all four lines, so the figures are what the page renders rather than a straight-line projection.
| Uniform sell-through | Takings | Left at the end of the day |
|---|---|---|
| 30% | $219.00 | -$223.89 |
| 50% | $366.00 | -$79.56 |
| 61% | $438.00 | -$8.87 |
| 62.5% | $452.00 | $4.87 |
| 67.6% (the entered figures, not uniform) | $495.00 | $47.09 |
| 85% | $619.00 | $168.83 |
The 61.1 percent break-even is continuous arithmetic; the table crosses into the black at 62.5 percent because you sell whole units, and four part-units rounded down are worth about nine dollars here. Treat the headline figure as the target and the extra point and a half as the cost of not being able to sell half a bag of salad.
Related pages
What to load in the first place, and whether it fits in the vehicle, is the market van load plan calculator. The hours behind the load are in the market harvest pick list calculator. For a general fixed-cost break-even that is not tied to a single day, see the break-even calculator, and for the margin arithmetic on a single line, the margin calculator. A subscription box is a different money shape entirely and is handled by the CSA share price drawdown calculator.
Questions people ask
Why is the break-even given as a share of the load rather than in dollars?
Because the dollars on their own are not comparable between days. Needing $447 is comfortable with a $900 load and impossible with a $500 one, and the load is the thing you control on the Friday. Expressing it as a share of the retail value on the table gives you a figure you can check against the stall at eleven in the morning, when there is still time to do something about it. The dollar figure is shown as well.
What should I put for cost each?
Everything the unit cost you before it reached the table: seed and inputs, the share of the ground it used, water, and the harvest and pack time. Growers routinely put in seed cost alone, which makes the break-even look far better than it is. If you cannot build a defensible figure, put in what you can support, and read the result as a floor rather than an answer. There is no default here because a bunch of carrots and a bag of salad have nothing in common.
Does the leftover produce really count as a cost of the day?
It was spent whether or not you went, so in strict terms it is sunk by the time the van is loaded. What the page is showing you is that the decision it belongs to — how much to load — happens before the day and is invisible afterwards. If unsold produce has a real second outlet, put a percentage in the salvage field and it comes back as a recovery. If it does not, the zero is telling you something true.
Can this tell me whether a market is worth doing?
It can tell you what one day, as you described it, came to. It cannot tell you whether the market is worth doing, because that depends on days you have not entered, on the customers a market builds for the rest of your business, and on what else you would have done with the Saturday. Run several real days through it, including the bad ones, and the spread will be more informative than any single answer.
What about the stall fee structures where the market takes a percentage?
Put the percentage in the market share field and leave the flat fee at whatever it actually is; the page handles both together, and a market that takes both is common. The percentage comes off the top of sales alongside card processing, which is why the takings you need are slightly higher than the costs you are covering. What any particular market may charge, and on what terms, is between you and that market.