Profit-per-acre calculator (40+ US crops)
How much profit can you make from one acre of tomatoes? Garlic? Field corn? Pick a crop, plug in your acreage and your actual prices/yields if you have them — we estimate gross revenue, cost-of-goods, and net profit using mid-range US baselines. Use as a planning baseline, not a forecast.
Farm Planner's decision engine uses zone-specific economics for Tomato (field, fresh-market) (Pennsylvania ≠ California ≠ Provence) and ranks the most profitable crops for YOUR water budget, region, and acreage. Free 30-day trial.
Start free 30-day trialHow is profit-per-acre actually computed?
profit = (yield_per_acre × price_per_unit × acres) − (cost_per_acre × acres). The cost figure bundles seed, fertiliser, labour, irrigation, and share of fixed costs (equipment use, land lease, taxes). Margins vary 2-3× by channel: a farmers-market tomato fetches $3-4/lb; the same tomato sold to a wholesaler clears $0.80-1.20. The defaults below assume wholesale, mid-Atlantic / Midwest US.
Default yield, price, and cost figures (US baselines)
| Crop | Yield/acre | Price/unit | Cost/acre | Net/acre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🍅 Tomato (field, fresh-market) | 25,000 lbs | $1.2/lb | $6,500 | $23,500 |
| 🥬 Lettuce (head) | 22,000 lbs | $0.8/lb | $3,500 | $14,100 |
| 🫑 Bell pepper | 18,000 lbs | $1.1/lb | $5,800 | $14,000 |
| 🥕 Carrot | 28,000 lbs | $0.55/lb | $3,200 | $12,200 |
| 🥒 Cucumber (field) | 16,000 lbs | $0.65/lb | $3,000 | $7,400 |
| 🧅 Onion | 32,000 lbs | $0.4/lb | $3,500 | $9,300 |
| 🥔 Potato | 30,000 lbs | $0.3/lb | $2,800 | $6,200 |
| 🌽 Sweet corn | 8,000 ears | $0.3/ear | $1,500 | $900 |
| 🍓 Strawberry (matted-row) | 10,000 lbs | $3.5/lb | $9,000 | $26,000 |
| 🧄 Garlic (cured bulb) | 6,000 lbs | $6/lb | $4,200 | $31,800 |
| 🎃 Pumpkin (jack-o-lantern) | 9,000 lbs | $0.25/lb | $1,800 | $450 |
| 🍉 Watermelon | 25,000 lbs | $0.3/lb | $2,200 | $5,300 |
| 🌽 Field corn (grain) | 180 bu | $4.3/bu | $580 | $194 |
| 🫘 Soybean | 55 bu | $11.5/bu | $430 | $202.5 |
| 🌾 Wheat (winter) | 65 bu | $6/bu | $340 | $50 |
| 🌾 Hay (mixed grass, dryland) | 4,500 lbs | $0.18/lb | $280 | $530 |
| 🌱 Alfalfa (irrigated) | 9,000 lbs | $0.24/lb | $650 | $1,510 |
| 🍇 Wine grape (Vitis vinifera) | 4,500 lbs | $1.8/lb | $4,500 | $3,600 |
| 🌰 Walnut (in-shell) | 4,500 lbs | $1.2/lb | $2,800 | $2,600 |
The most-profitable-crops trap
High-margin crops aren't automatically the right answer. Garlic and strawberries net $20k+/acre on paper but require labour- intensive harvest, careful storage, and direct-to-consumer channels to clear those margins. A field-corn farmer at $200/acre net is not making a worse decision — they're operating at a different scale, with different risk and labour profiles.
The right question isn't "what's the highest-margin crop" but "what's the highest-margin fit for my water, soil, labour, market access, and risk tolerance." That's what Farm Planner's decision engine answers using your specific inputs.
Run a real plan, not a guess
Farm Planner's profit simulator combines your zone's actual economics, your water budget, and your acreage to rank crops properly — including the rotation engine that warns you before tomato goes back where tomato just came out. Free 30-day trial.
Sources: University of California vegetable crop budgets, Penn State enterprise budgets, Iowa State row-crop costs, USDA-ERS commodity prices, Farm Planner's internal zone-economics dataset. Disclaimer: All numbers are mid-range planning baselines. Real outcomes vary 2-3× by year, region, channel, and management. Not a forecast — a starting point.