Breakeven Crop Price Calculator

Breakeven price is your total cost per acre divided by expected yield in bushels per acre, so with costs held fixed, a larger yield spreads that same total cost across more bushels, meaning each individual bushel needs to sell for less to cover the whole acre's expenses. Yield and breakeven price always move in opposite directions here.

Yes — seed cost is added directly into total cost per acre along with the other five cost categories, and breakeven price is that total divided by yield, so with yield held fixed, any increase in seed cost per acre raises total cost per acre and therefore raises the breakeven price by a proportional amount.

This model treats your expected yield as a certainty, but real yields vary with weather, pest pressure, and disease. It also doesn't account for crop insurance indemnity payments, government program payments, or basis (the local cash-price difference from the futures price), all of which affect your real net return.

These are quick stress tests against near-term futures or forward-contract prices without re-entering your cost inputs each time — a negative number at a price near where you can currently sell tells you that price doesn't cover your production costs, which is useful for deciding whether to forward-contract, hold, or cut costs.

It depends entirely on your operation and region, but land cost and fertilizer are frequently the two largest per-acre expenses in row-crop budgets, so small percentage changes in either — a rent renegotiation or a fertilizer price swing — often move the breakeven price more than an equivalent percentage change in a smaller line item like chemicals.