How Much Should You Sell Herbs For? (2026 Pricing Guide)

Every herb grower hits the same moment at the market table: the basil looks great, the cilantro is standing in a jar of water, and you have no idea whether a bunch is worth $2, $3 or $5.

Most herb pricing advice stops at "charge $2 to $4 a bunch." That range is right, but it does not tell you where in it you belong, or why the bottom of it quietly loses money. This guide builds the price from real numbers checked the day it was written: what markets are charging, what the grocery store charges, what a bunch costs you in supplies, and what your morning of cutting is worth.

How Much Should You Sell Herbs For?

Sell a standard bunch of fresh herbs for $3, and move up to $4 or $5 for herbs that are harder to find or slower to grow. That puts you in the middle of what five Virginia farmers markets charged in August 2026 and well above what the bunch costs you to make.

Here is the price ladder most part-time herb growers can use as a starting point:

Scroll sideways to see every column.

The ladder is our recommendation. It is anchored on the Virginia Market News Service report of August 31, 2026 ($2 to $5 a bunch across five markets) and on Homegrown's live catalog, both loaded September 22, 2026.

Three things back the $3 starting point:

• The market. In August 2026, market managers in Virginia reported herbs at $2, $2.50, $3, $3 and $5 a bunch. The middle of that list is $3.
• Other vendors online. Plain and single-herb listings on Homegrown ranged from $1.49 to $5 on September 22, 2026, and the middle listing was $3.
• Your costs. In the market-day example later in this guide, a bunch costs about $2.17 once you pay yourself, count the booth and allow for bunches that do not sell. $3 covers that. $2 does not.

If you are still deciding which herbs to grow, how to harvest them and how to keep them fresh, start with the companion guide on how to sell fresh herbs from home. It covers growing, packaging and which varieties sell. This guide picks up where it leaves off: the numbers behind the price tag. That guide now uses the same $3 a bunch for cilantro, mint, dill and parsley, and this page shows the market, cost and time numbers behind it: $2 sits under the cost of a bunch sold in the example.

What Are Other Vendors Charging for Herbs Right Now?

At five Virginia farmers markets in August 2026, herb bunches sold for $2 to $5, and $3 was the most common price. The best public source for this is a state market news report, because it prints the actual prices market managers turn in each month.

The Virginia Market News Service's retail farmers market report, dated August 31, 2026, lists an herb price at five markets:

Swipe across to read the whole table.

Source: Virginia Market News Service, Retail Farmers' Markets publication, August 31, 2026 (Vol. 34 No. 04), loaded September 22, 2026. Market managers submit these prices monthly. The report lists herbs as one line, not by variety.

The five conventional prices add up to $15.50, an average of $3.10 a bunch. Two things stand out. Annandale, in Fairfax County, charged the most at $5, while Burke, in the same county, charged $3. And two markets reported organic herbs separately: Birdhouse charged $1.50 more for them, $4 against $2.50, while Lakeside charged the same $2 for both.

Two Homegrown vendors list basil about $2 apart, at $2.99 and $5. The $5 listing is labeled a bunch; the $2.99 listing does not state a size. Both can be right. The difference can come from bunch size and how rare basil is where each vendor sells.

Why Can't You Beat the Grocery Store on Cilantro and Parsley?

Because grocery stores advertise them at under $1 a bunch, and you cannot grow, cut and bunch herbs for that. USDA's weekly survey of grocery ads, the Weekly Grocery Store Specialty Crops Feature Activity report for September 18, 2026, put the national average advertised price at:

• Cilantro: $0.81 a bunch across 650 ads ($0.96 the week before, $0.99 a year earlier)
• Curly parsley: $0.99 a bunch across 250 ads
• Flat-leaf parsley: $0.99 a bunch across 250 ads

Those are the only herbs in that week's national summary. The small plastic packs of basil, thyme and rosemary in the produce cooler did not show up in the ads at all, and they are the herbs where your bunch looks like the better deal next to a grocery pack.

So do not price your cilantro against 81 cents. Price it against what a shopper cannot get at the store: herbs cut that morning, a bunch twice the size, and varieties the store never stocks. The shopper who buys cilantro from you at $3 is buying a bunch that will still be green on Thursday.

Your real competition on everyday herbs is the vendor two tables over. If three growers at your market sell parsley at $3, the fourth one selling it at $2 does not win more customers so much as teach everyone that parsley is a $2 herb.

What Does One Bunch of Herbs Cost You to Make?

Supplies for one bunch of herbs cost about 3 cents if you just band it, or about 21 cents if it goes in a clamshell. Sprouts flip that math because the seed costs more than the pack: a 4-ounce clamshell of alfalfa takes about 74 cents of seed, which is why sprouts sell for about $4 a pack rather than at an herb-bunch price. Seed barely registers. Here is the build for a basil bunch, from supplier prices loaded September 22, 2026:

Scroll right for the rest of each row.

We checked each price on the supplier's own product page on September 22, 2026. Water, soil amendments and your garden space are left out because they vary too much from yard to yard to put one number on.

Fedco Seeds sells produce rubber bands at $12.50 a pound, roughly 425 of the #64 size that market growers use for bunching, which works out to 3 cents a band. That is the whole packaging cost for a banded bunch you stand in a jar of water.

This is why herb margins look so good on paper. The supplies for a $3 bunch cost less than a quarter. But supplies are not what makes herbs expensive to sell. Your time is, and so are the bunches you cut that never leave the table. The next two sections put a number on both.

How Do You Put a Price on Your Time?

Time yourself for one full market's worth of bunches, decide what an hour is worth to you, and divide. Herbs are cheap to grow and slow to handle. The University of Kentucky's crop profile on culinary herbs (CCD-CP-51) puts the total labor for one 100-foot by 4-foot bed of basil at seven hours or more, and says harvest and packing take nearly half of it.

Here is how to turn your own morning into a per-bunch number:

• Time one full harvest. Start the clock when you pick up the shears and stop it when the last bunch is banded, washed, bagged and in the cooler. Include the washing and the wilted leaves you strip off.
• Count the bunches. Divide bunches by hours to get your bunches per hour. Do this twice, because the first harvest of the season is always slow.
• Pick an hourly number. Use what you would want to be paid for any other part-time job. The example below uses $20 an hour.
• Divide the hourly number by bunches per hour. At 20 bunches an hour and $20 an hour, your time costs $1.00 a bunch.
• Add supplies and your booth. Add 3 to 21 cents of supplies per bunch, then spread the booth fee across every bunch you bring.
• Divide by the bunches that sell, not the bunches you cut. Unsold herbs do not keep until next week, so the cost of every wilted bunch lands on the ones that sold.

The example market day. Say you cut and pack 60 bunches in 3 hours, which is 20 an hour. You pay yourself $20 an hour, so your time is $60. Supplies at 21.44 cents a bunch, a rubber band (about 425 for $12.50 at Fedco) plus a 0.75-ounce clamshell ($92.49 for 500 at WebstaurantStore), come to $12.86. A bunch bigger than that clamshell holds needs a larger pack or a bag, so price your own pack if you go bigger. Your booth costs $25. That is $97.86 before a single sale, or $1.63 for every bunch you brought.

Now say 45 of the 60 bunches sell and 15 go home limp. Your cost per bunch sold is $97.86 divided by 45, which is $2.17. That number is your floor before card fees, which add another 20 to 25 cents a bunch at a card reader for prices from $2 to $4. Any price under it means you are paying to be at the market. These numbers are an example, not a rule, so swap in your own hours, booth fee and sell-through.

Why Does a $2 Bunch Lose Money?

At $2 a bunch, the example market day above pays you about $14 an hour instead of $20, while $3 pays about $29 and $4 pays about $44. Same herbs, same morning, same booth. The only thing that changes is the price tag.

Here is the math, using the example day (60 bunches cut, 45 sold, 3 hours of work, $25 booth, 21.44 cents of supplies a bunch) and card payments on a Square reader at 2.6% plus 15 cents a sale:

Swipe left to see all five columns.

Card fees use Square's free plan in-person rate of 2.6% plus 15 cents per payment, checked on Square's pricing page on September 22, 2026, and assume every bunch is paid for separately by card. Cash sales carry no fee. The fixed cost in every row is $97.86: $60 of your time, $12.86 of supplies and a $25 booth. It assumes you already own a Square card reader; Square's hardware starts at $59.

Three things this table shows that the "$2 to $4" advice misses:

• The bottom of the range is below the floor. A $2 bunch sits under the $2.17 cost per bunch sold in the example.
• One dollar is most of your profit. Going from $3 to $4 adds $45 in sales and keeps about $44 of it, because your costs barely move.
• Waste is the hidden multiplier. If 55 of the 60 bunches sold instead of 45, your cost per bunch sold would drop from $2.17 to $1.78, so selling out matters as much as the price.

These hourly numbers count only the 3 hours of cutting and packing. Add the morning you spend at the table and the drive, and every row pays less per hour, which makes the gap between $2 and $3 matter even more.

A $2 price can make sense for the last bunches of the day, or for herbs you would compost otherwise. It should not be your default.

How Big Should a $3 Bunch Be?

Make a $3 bunch the size a home cook uses in one or two meals, and keep every bunch the same weight so the price means something. A kitchen scale is the easiest pricing tool you will buy. Weigh ten bunches of each herb and settle on a target weight.

Weight also lets you compare your price with any other price, including a restaurant quote by the pound. Here is what a $3 bunch works out to at different sizes:

Scroll sideways for the per-pound column.

Simple division: $3 divided by the bunch weight in ounces, times 16 for the price per pound. Weigh your own bunches; herb density varies a lot between leafy basil and needle-like rosemary.

A few rules keep bunch sizes honest:

• Same herb, same weight. Shoppers compare bunches side by side. Two cilantro bunches that look different at the same price make the small one look like a rip-off.
• Go bigger rather than cheaper. If an herb is not moving at $3, add a few stems before you drop the price. A generous bunch sells the next one.
• Woody herbs weigh more for less volume. Rosemary and thyme stems are heavy, so judge those by the number of sprigs and the look of the bunch, not the scale alone.

The companion guide on selling fresh herbs lists typical stem counts for each variety if you want a starting point for how many stems to band together.

How Should You Price Basil, Rosemary and Specialty Herbs?

Price basil, rosemary, thyme and sage at $4, and herbs few stores carry, like Thai basil, shiso and tarragon, at $5. The harder an herb is to find, the less anyone compares it to a grocery price.

Basil needs its own note, because it is the herb everyone grows. NC State Extension's guide to fresh herb production and marketing says basil is the fresh herb produced in the largest volumes, and that in mid-summer, when most growers have it, prices are low. Its advice is to have fresh basil "when no one else does," in early spring after frost and in winter.

For a part-time grower that means two things:

• Charge $5 for basil in June and September, when fewer tables have it, and hold $4 in the July glut with a bigger bunch instead of a lower price.
• Sell basil in bigger amounts in peak season. Try a pesto bunch of about 4 ounces at $8; a shopper making pesto has a use for all of it.

Thyme and sage are perennials, and rosemary is too where winters are mild. They cost you almost nothing once the plant is established, but they can be slow to regrow after a hard cut, so you have fewer bunches to sell. That scarcity is worth the extra dollar. Specialty herbs earn $5 because the shopper who wants shiso or Thai basil for a specific recipe usually has nowhere else to get it that week.

How Much Should a Mixed Herb Bunch Cost?

Price a mixed herb bunch at $8 to $10, roughly the price of two or three single bunches, with a smaller amount of each herb. Mixed bunches sell to the shopper who wants a little of everything and does not want four separate bunches going limp in the fridge.

Real listings show the range. On Homegrown, Aliken Beach Farm sells a basil bunch for $5, rosemary for $5, and a mixed bunch of basil, dill, parsley, chives and fennel for $10. Fields & Firelight Farms charges $17 for its "Kitchen Herb Harvest," a hand-tied seasonal mix cut the day of pickup, which puts the mixed bunch at the top of the herb price range.

Ways to make a mixed bunch worth more than its parts:

• Name it for a meal. A salsa bunch (cilantro, a jalapeño, scallions), a soup bunch (parsley, thyme, bay) or a pesto-and-pasta bunch tells the shopper exactly what to do with it.
• Use your slow movers. Tuck in the chives or oregano that would otherwise go home, which cuts your waste.
• Keep the price round. $8 or $10 is easy to pay in cash and easy to remember next week.

A mixed bunch also takes longer to build than a single-herb bunch, so time a few before you price them. If it takes you twice as long to assemble, the $8 to $10 range already pays for that.

Should You Price Herbs by the Bunch or by the Pound?

Sell to home cooks by the bunch and to restaurants by the pound. Shoppers at a market table think in bunches. Chefs think in weight, because their recipes and invoices do.

The per-pound price is usually much lower than your bunch price works out to, and that is fine. The University of Kentucky crop profile uses basil marketed at $10 a pound in its example of what a 100-foot bed could return. That is 62.5 cents an ounce, while a 1-ounce bunch at $3 works out to $48 a pound. The chef's price is lower because you skip the banding, the clamshells, the booth and the unsold bunches: you cut, bag loose and deliver on a set day.

Before you quote a restaurant, work out:

• Your per-pound floor. Time how long it takes to cut and bag a pound, and add delivery time and gas.
• A weekly minimum. Set a minimum order, like 2 pounds a week, so one trip pays for itself.
• A standing day. Deliver to every restaurant on one set day of the week. NC State notes that when restaurants are few and far between, deliveries take more and more time as you grow, until delivering a pound or two at a time to many places stops paying.

The $10 figure comes from a 2020 extension publication, so treat it as a starting point for the conversation, not a current market price, and ask the chef what they pay their distributor now. Homegrown's guide on selling food to local restaurants and cafes covers pitching the chef and setting payment terms.

What Do Card Fees Take From an Herb Sale?

Card fees take about 13% of a $3 bunch paid for on its own online, and about 6% of a $10 herb order. The reason is the flat part of the fee. A 30-cent charge barely matters on a $40 order and matters a lot on a $3 bunch.

Here is the full fee stack on a $10 herb order, plus a $20 order for comparison, on the platforms an herb grower is most likely to use. On Homegrown, Square and Shopify, the $10 order is two $3 bunches and a $4 basil bunch paid in one charge. On Etsy, where you would sell dried herbs, it is one $10 listing:

Swipe across for every fee in the stack.

We checked every fee on each company's own pricing page (findhomegrown.com/signup, Square, Shopify and Etsy) on September 22, 2026. Card processing is figured on the $10 price; charged on a total with tax or shipping it runs a few cents higher. The Square card reader row assumes you already own a Square reader; Square's hardware starts at $59. Fresh-cut herbs rarely survive regular shipping, so Etsy mostly fits dried herbs and seasonings. The Etsy row assumes each order is one listing, such as a $10 or $20 jar of dried herbs, so it carries one 20-cent listing fee; an order of three separate products would carry three.

Two ways to keep fees from eating small herb sales:

• Sell in threes. One $3 bunch paid alone online loses 39 cents, or 12.9%. Three bunches on one $9 order lose 56 cents total, or 6.2%. Ask regulars to put three herbs on one order at full price, $9, or list a three-herb bunch as its own $9 product.
• Take cash at the table. Cash has no fee. Keep a card reader for shoppers without cash, since a lost $3 sale costs more than the 23 cents a card reader takes on it.

For a deeper look at what each selling channel charges, Homegrown's breakdown of Etsy fees for food sellers walks through every line of the Etsy stack.

How Do You Stop Cutting Herbs Nobody Buys?

Take herb orders before market day, so you cut to the order instead of guessing. In the example earlier, 15 unsold bunches pushed the cost of every bunch that did sell from $1.63 to $2.17. Every bunch you skip cutting because nobody ordered it is money back in your pocket.

Homegrown gives you an online storefront where regulars order and pay for this week's herbs before you pick up the shears. It costs $10 a month billed annually ($12.50 month to month) with no percentage fees beyond standard payment processing of 2.9% plus 30 cents, which you pay. You list each herb at your bunch price, customers pick a pickup or delivery option, and you see the exact count on harvest morning. When a regular adds a $4 basil bunch to the same order, you pay the 30-cent part of the card fee once instead of twice: about 50 cents on the $7 order instead of about 80 cents on two orders.

Compare that to the options most herb growers start with:

• Square's free online checkout costs nothing a month but charges 3.3% plus 30 cents per online payment, 63 cents on a $10 order against Homegrown's 59 cents plus the plan.
• Etsy works for dried herbs you ship, but fresh bunches rarely survive regular mail, and the 6.5% transaction fee, 3% plus 25 cents in processing and the 20-cent listing fee come to $1.40 on a $10 sale.
• Texts and Instagram messages cost nothing but your evenings, and every "can I get two basil?" is a message to answer and a payment to chase.

Homegrown does not grow, cut or price your herbs for you. Customers create a Homegrown account to place their first order. Your storefront is listed on Homegrown's marketplace, but plan on most orders coming from the people you send your link to, like the regulars who already buy from your table. There is no timed drop or countdown release. If pre-orders would cut your wilted-bunch pile, you can set up a Homegrown storefront for your herbs in about 15 minutes and share the link at your next market.

When Should Herb Prices Change During the Season?

Hold your price or add a dollar at the edges of the season, and give on size, not price, in the mid-summer glut. Herb supply swings hard. In June every grower has a little. By July every table at the market has basil.

A simple season plan for a part-time grower:

• Early season (first cuttings): Full price, and $1 more for basil, $5, while few other tables have it. NC State's advice is to have basil when no one else does.
• Peak summer: Keep the $3 or $4 tag but make bunches bigger. Cutting the tag trains shoppers to wait for a sale.
• Late season and first frost: Back to full price, and $5 for basil while few tables still have it. Basil drops out at the first frost, and shoppers notice who still has herbs.
• Holidays: Rosemary, thyme and sage are Thanksgiving herbs. Try an $8 "stuffing bunch" of all three, with a little less of each herb than a single bunch, in the week before Thanksgiving.

If you need to raise prices mid-season, Homegrown's guide on raising prices without losing customers covers how to tell regulars and what wording keeps them buying.

How Do Fresh, Dried and Potted Herb Prices Compare?

Fresh herb listings run $1.49 to $17 on Homegrown, potted herb plants $4, and herb seasonings, salts and frozen herb cubes $5 to $9. Each form has a different price because each has a different shelf life and different work behind it.

Scroll right to see where to read more.

From a live pull of Homegrown's catalog on September 22, 2026: 2,605 products from 296 vendors. Herb breads, butters, jams, teas, oils, ready meals, microgreens, soaps, candles, a tincture and a $48 Thai basil stir-fry kit (Thai basil with peppers and garlic) were left out.

What this means for pricing:

• Fresh herbs carry the most risk, because anything unsold is gone in a day or two. That risk is why the waste allowance in your price matters most here.
• Potted herbs are a spring product. Red Shed Market prices every 3.5-inch herb start at $4, the same as its 3.5-inch vegetable starts. Homegrown's guide on how much to sell seedlings for builds the cost of one of those pots.
• Dried herbs turn your extra into a product that keeps, but drying usually counts as food processing, so check your state's cottage food rules first.

The same herbs often end up in a tea blend too. If you dry mint, lemon balm or chamomile for tea, Homegrown's guide on how much to sell tea for prices the pouch.

What Pricing Mistakes Do New Herb Vendors Make?

One costly mistake is pricing cilantro and parsley against the grocery store, where 81 cents to 99 cents a bunch is a price no small grower can match. Most of the other mistakes come from the same place: counting supplies and forgetting time.

Watch for these:

• Pricing from supply cost. Supplies run 3 to 21 cents a bunch. If that is your cost, any price looks like profit. Your time is the real cost.
• Starting at $2 to be the cheapest. In the example day, $2 paid about $14 an hour. The market's middle price was $3.
• Different sizes at one price. Shoppers pick the biggest bunch, and the small ones go home.
• Cutting too much. 15 unsold bunches out of 60 raised the cost of every sold bunch by 54 cents in the example.
• Odd-cent prices. $2.75 slows the line. Whole dollars sell faster.
• Discounting in the glut. A lower price in July makes shoppers expect it in September. Give size instead.
• Quoting a chef your bunch price. A restaurant buys by the pound and expects a lower rate for skipping the bunching.

Most of these are fixed by one habit: write down how many bunches you cut, how many sold and at what price, every market day, for a month.

How Do You Know Your Herb Price Is Right?

Your herb price is right when you sell most of what you cut by the last hour of the market, and your time works out to what you wanted to earn. Selling out in the first hour means you are too cheap or cutting too little. Taking a third of your bunches home means you are cutting too much or the bunches are not worth the price.

Run this check after four market days:

• Add up your sell-through. Bunches sold divided by bunches cut. The example day above ran at 75%. At 90%, 54 of the same 60 bunches, the cost per bunch sold drops from $2.17 to $1.81.
• Note when each herb sold out. An herb gone by 10 a.m. every week can take a $1 raise. An herb still on the table at close needs a bigger bunch or fewer stems cut.
• Work out your real hourly pay. Sales, minus supplies, booth and card fees, divided by your hours cutting and selling.
• Change one thing at a time. Raise one herb by $1, or cut 10 fewer bunches of it, and watch the next two markets.

Pre-orders make this check easier, because the orders tell you your demand before you cut. If you want to see your herb demand before harvest morning, a Homegrown storefront lets regulars reserve their bunches during the week for $10 a month billed annually, so the cutting list is set before you walk into the garden.

For the booth side of the math, Homegrown's guide to the real cost of selling at farmers markets lays out every fee a market vendor pays beyond the herbs themselves.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much should I charge per bunch of basil?

Charge $4 for a standard bunch of basil, and $5 early and late in the season when few other tables have it. Homegrown vendors listed basil at $2.99 (no size given) and $5 (a bunch) on September 22, 2026. NC State Extension notes basil prices drop in mid-summer, when most growers have it, so give a bigger bunch then instead of a lower price.

How much do herbs sell for at a farmers market?

At the five Virginia farmers markets that reported herb prices in August 2026, a bunch cost $2 to $5: $2, $2.50, $3, $3 and $5, an average of $3.10. Organic herbs were $4 at one Richmond market and $2 at another. The report lists herbs as one line, so it does not show what specialty herbs like Thai basil or shiso sold for; this guide's $5 for those is our recommendation.

Is it better to sell herbs by weight or by the bunch?

Sell to home cooks by the bunch and to restaurants by the pound. Shoppers find a bunch easier to judge and pay for. Weigh your bunches anyway: a 1-ounce bunch at $3 is $48 a pound, which helps you check your price against a chef's per-pound quote.

How much does it cost to grow one bunch of herbs to sell?

The supplies for one bunch cost about 3 cents with a rubber band, or about 21 cents in a clamshell, and seed adds a few cents at most. The real cost is your time and the bunches that do not sell. In a market-day example with 60 bunches cut, 45 sold and your time at $20 an hour, each bunch sold cost $2.17.

Should I match grocery store herb prices?

No, not on cilantro and parsley. Grocery ads put cilantro at 81 cents and parsley at 99 cents a bunch in September 2026, below what a small grower can cut and bunch it for. Price fresh herbs for size, freshness and variety instead, and when you sell herbs for $3 a bunch, make the bunch visibly bigger and greener than the store's.

How much should I charge restaurants for fresh herbs?

Quote restaurants by the pound, well below your bunch price, because you skip the bunching, packaging and booth. The University of Kentucky's crop profile uses $10 a pound for basil in its 2020 example; ask the chef what they pay now and set a weekly minimum so one delivery pays for itself.

Related Reading

More pricing and selling guides for herb growers:

• How to Sell Fresh Herbs From Home: which herbs sell, how to harvest them and how to package a bunch.
• How to Price Vegetables at a Farm Stand (2026 Price Guide): the same pricing logic for the rest of your table.
• How to Sell Dried Herbs and Spice Mixes From Home: turning extra herbs into jars that keep for months.
• How to Sell Potted Herb Plants at a Farmers Market: pricing and selling herb plants in spring.
• Bundle Pricing: How to Build a Bundle That Increases Your Average Order: setting up deals like three bunches for $8.

Herbs let a part-time grower hold a fair price and still sell out, as long as the bunches are fresh, generous and cut to what people ordered. Set your price from your own time and sell-through, and let your regulars reserve their bunches on a Homegrown storefront before market day.