Hydroponic System Cost Estimator

Pricing a Build Before You Buy It

• Choose the system, which sets cost and solution volume.
• Enter the footprint that the lights actually cover.
• Set plants per square foot for your crop and spacing.
• Enter cycles grown per year, not days per cycle.
• Add the days from transplant to first harvest.
• Total the watts running, lights plus pumps and chillers.
• Use your real tariff for the electricity price.
• Enter how many years the hardware will serve.
• Give harvest weight per plant and the store price.
• Read cost per cycle, then the payback verdict.
• Re-run it with a second system to compare builds.

Startup, Power and Nutrients per Cycle

Worked Example: 16 Square Feet of Deep Water Culture

• Choose DWC, at 12 dollars of hardware per sq ft.
• Sixteen sq ft at three plants each is 48 plants.
• Startup is 192 dollars, spread over 50 cycles, so 3.84 each.
• Solution volume is 1.5 gal per plant, 72 gal per cycle.
• Nutrients at 0.10 per gallon cost 7.20 dollars.
• 240 W for 16 hours across 40 days is 153.6 kWh.
• At 0.16 the power line is 24.58 dollars.
• One cycle therefore costs 35.62, or 0.74 per plant.
• Forty-eight plants at half a pound gives 24 lb.
• That is a real cost of 1.48 dollars per lb grown.
• The same 24 lb at 4.50 is worth 108 dollars bought.
• So each cycle saves 72.38 dollars and repays the build in 2.7 cycles.

What Each System Type Costs to Build and Feed

Key Terms

Startup cost

One time hardware spend before any crop is grown.

Amortized

Spread across the number of cycles the equipment is expected to survive.

Cycle

One full crop, from transplant in to final harvest out.

Turnover

How often the reservoir volume is replaced or resaved.

Tariff

Your utility price per kilowatt hour, often flat or time of use.

Opportunity cost

What your hours and capital would have produced if spent on something else.

Where the Money Actually Goes

• Electricity dominates every indoor cost model, and a more efficient light usually saves more in a year than it cost to buy, so enter wattage honestly.
• Small passive systems are the odd case where the cost per pound can beat a supermarket, because there is no pump, no timer and nothing to fail, while the same leaves sold as specialty salad carry a high retail price.
• Scale cuts the nutrient line and not the power line, since feed is priced per gallon while lighting is priced per square foot of coverage.
• Hardware life rarely matches expectation. Reservoirs stain, air pumps wear out in eighteen months and plastic flexes until it cracks, so five years is a generous assumption for a budget build.
• Compare against the specific crop you would otherwise buy rather than iceberg lettuce, because a failing herb harvest priced at salad rates makes everything look cheap.

Common Mistakes & Fixes

• Counting only the parts and leaving the lights out of startup.
• Using a daytime tariff for a room that runs at night.
• Assuming hardware lasts a decade when pumps wear far sooner.
• Comparing home grown basil against the price of lettuce.
• Forgetting that a chiller and a dehumidifier are also watts.
• Running one cycle a year and calling the build uneconomic.
• Leaving seedlings, media and pH gear out of the feed line.
• Ignoring replacement pumps and air stones as consumables.

When to Reach for This

Hydroponic System Cost Estimator: Frequently Asked Questions