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

Every spring the same question shows up at the seed-starting shelf: you have trays of tomato, pepper and basil starts coming along nicely, and no idea whether a young plant in a small pot is worth $2, $4 or $6 at the market.

Seedlings are easier to price than most people think, because every input is sold at a published price. Seed comes by the packet, pots come by the sleeve, and potting mix comes by the bag. Add those up per pot, allow for the plants that never sell, and the price falls out.

This guide builds that cost from real supplier prices loaded the day it was written, then sets a price for the pot sizes a part-time vendor actually sells. It also shows what card fees take out of a $4 sale, and what a whole spring looks like at three sizes of operation.

What Should You Charge for a Seedling in a 3.5-Inch Pot?

Charge $4 for a standard vegetable or herb start in a 3.5-inch pot. That covers tomatoes, peppers, basil, cabbage, broccoli, cucumbers and most herbs. It is the price the one seedling vendor on Homegrown uses for all 43 of their starts, and it leaves a clear margin over what the plant costs you.

Three things back that number:

• The market. In a pull of Homegrown's live catalog on September 22, 2026, Red Shed Market listed 43 starts in 3.5-inch pots and every single one was $4.00, from Sungold tomatoes to Serrano peppers to Genovese basil.
• Your cost. A 3.5-inch tomato start costs $1.75 to grow at small-quantity prices. $4 is 2.3 times that.
• Your losses. If 1 in 6 plants never sells, your cost per plant sold is $2.10, and $4 still covers it nearly twice.

If you are still deciding whether to grow starts for sale at all, what to grow and where to sell them, start with how to sell plants and seedlings at farmers markets. This guide picks up where that one leaves off: the actual numbers behind the price tag. That guide's pricing table now uses the same $1.75 to $1.85 for a potted tomato or pepper, because the pot costs $0.53 and the potting mix $0.87 at small-quantity supplier prices loaded on September 22, 2026.

A $4 price works best as the default for plants the garden center also carries. For varieties it does not stock, like a named heirloom or an unusual pepper, $5 is a reasonable test price. The one rule is to never price below twice your cost per pot, which is $3.50 for the tomato start costed below.

What Does One Seedling Actually Cost You to Grow?

It costs $1.75 in supplies to grow one tomato start in a 3.5-inch pot at small-quantity prices, and $1.51 when you buy pots, seed and mix in bulk. Those totals come from five lines, each priced on Johnny's Selected Seeds product pages on September 22, 2026.

The method is simple. You sow each seed in a small cell of a 128-cell plug flat, then move the young plant up into its 3.5-inch pot once it has true leaves. The pot sits in a standard 1020 tray (a 10-by-20-inch carry tray), which holds 18 of them.

Scroll sideways to see every column.

We checked every price in this table on Johnny's Selected Seeds product pages on September 22, 2026. Johnny's sells the 3.5-inch pot as its Maxi Square Plastic Pots, 3 1/2 inches square by 3 1/2 inches deep. Trays and pots are reusable, so their share drops in your second season. Shipping is not included.

The number that surprises most growers is how little the seed matters. One seedling-sale guide puts it at 10 to 30 cents a plant for a 72-cell tray, counting seed, soil and labor, and that is roughly right for a plant in a cell. It is not right for a plant sitting in a pot of soil, ready to sell. Seed matters far more when the seed itself is the product: seven seed companies charged $2.95 to $5.50 for one Cherokee Purple tomato packet on October 1, 2026, and pricing packets of seed you saved yourself starts from that range.

Why Is Potting Mix the Biggest Line?

Potting mix costs you $0.87 a pot, the biggest single line, because a 3.5-inch pot holds almost three quarters of a quart and the Fort Vee mix priced here runs about $1.25 a quart. At 0.7 quart a pot, that is $0.87 of mix in every tomato start, half the total cost.

Here is the math, so you can redo it with your own bag:

1. A 3.5-inch pot that is 3.5 inches deep holds 3.5 x 3.5 x 3.5 = 42.9 cubic inches when brimming full.
2. A US quart is 57.75 cubic inches, so the pot holds 0.74 quart. Call it 0.7 once you leave room to water.
3. The 20-quart bag of Fort Vee mix was $24.95 on September 22, 2026. $24.95 / 20 = $1.2475 a quart, about $1.25.
4. 0.7 x $1.2475 = $0.87 per pot.

Buying the 45-quart bag only moves that to $0.85, so bag size is not where the savings are. The bigger levers are these:

• Price your own local mix. Divide the bag price by its quarts and compare to $1.25. Mix bought by the compressed bale, where your garden store sells it, is often priced per cubic foot; one cubic foot is about 30 quarts.
• Match the pot to the plant. Lettuce, onions and many flowers sell fine in smaller cells, which use a fraction of the mix.
• Do not overfill. Fill to about half an inch below the rim. It saves mix and makes watering easier.

How Do Tomato, Pepper and Herb Costs Compare?

Every crop here costs between $1.67 and $1.85 to grow in a 3.5-inch pot, from basil at the low end to a hybrid pepper at the top. The pot, mix, tray and plug cell cost the same for every crop. Only the seed changes. Basil you leave in the ground earns its money a different way, as cut bunches, and the guide to how much to sell herbs for works out why a $3 bunch clears its cost where a $2 bunch does not.

Swipe across to read the whole table.

Seed prices from Johnny's Selected Seeds packet pages, checked September 22, 2026. Every row uses the same $1.59 of plug cell, pot, mix and tray from the small-quantity column above. "Left per plant" is before card fees, booth fees and plants that do not sell.

Two practical points come out of this table:

• Hybrid pepper seed costs more per seed than tomato. A packet of 25 at $6.45 is $0.26 a seed. It still only moves the pot cost by a dime.
• Basil is the cheapest start to grow. Many growers sow a pinch of seeds per pot so it fills out faster. Even at 3 seeds, the seed costs $0.08.

This is why one flat $4 price across your whole table is easy to defend. Your costs barely differ, and one price makes the sign, the math and the change-making simpler.

How Do You Set Your Seedling Price, Step by Step?

Set your seedling price in five steps: cost one pot, double it for your floor, check that floor against the plants that will not sell, check the local going rate, and pick a round number. It takes about 15 minutes with your receipts in front of you.

• Cost one pot. Add seed, the cell you start it in, the pot, the mix and the tray share, like the table above. Use your real receipts, not ours.
• Double your cost per pot for the floor. The cost doubled is the cost per pot from step 1, not the cost per plant sold. $1.75 x 2 = $3.50. Below that, one bad weekend of weather wipes out the season's margin.
• Check the floor against the plants that will not sell. If you think 5 of every 6 will sell, multiply your cost per pot by 6 and divide by 5. For the tomato start, $1.75 becomes $2.10 per plant sold. The $3.50 floor covers that, and a $4 price covers it nearly twice.
• Check the going rate. Walk the other plant tables at your market and write down what they charge for the same pot size. On Homegrown, the one vendor selling 3.5-inch starts charged $4.00 for every one of them on September 22, 2026.
• Round to a price people can pay fast. $4, not $3.85. A whole-dollar price makes cash change easy and makes a three-plant bundle simple to say out loud.

If the floor from step 2 is higher than the going rate from step 4, look at your cost before you look at your price. Usually the mix or the pot size is the fix.

How Much Should Bigger Pots Sell For?

Charge $10 for a tomato in a 5.25-inch jumbo pot, because it costs $4.91 to grow and needs the same twice-your-cost floor as a $4 start. Bigger pots hold much more mix, and the mix is what you pay for.

Scroll right for the rest of each row.

Pot prices from Johnny's Selected Seeds on September 22, 2026: Maxi 3.5-inch pots at 18 for $9.50, Jumbo 5 1/4-inch by 5 1/2-inch pots at 8 for $9.95. Mix at the 20-quart bag price of $24.95. The jumbo row adds a $0.36 tray share, because only 8 fit in a tray. Both pots are filled the same way: about 95% of their brim-full volume, leaving room to water. The jumbo pot holds 5.25 x 5.25 x 5.5 = 151.6 cubic inches, or 2.63 quarts, brim-full.

A big pot earns its price when the plant in it is bigger too. The NC State bulletin Retailing Vegetable Transplants describes growers staking early tomatoes in gallon-size pots so they are ready on the first frost-free date, and marketing them to the neighbor who wants the first ripe tomato on the block. That is the buyer for a jumbo pot. Houseplants follow the same rule: one online plant shop listed its common plants at $12 to $15 in a 4-inch pot and $18 to $25 in a 6-inch pot, and pricing houseplants by pot size works the same way for a home vendor.

Use the jumbo size for:

• Early tomatoes, already flowering, for customers who want a head start.
• Squash and pumpkins, which Johnny's names as what the jumbo pot is for.
• Anything you can show with fruit or flowers on it, which sells the size for you.

Should You Sell Singles, Bundles or Whole Flats?

Sell singles at $4, and offer three for $11, because the fixed part of the card fee hits small tickets hardest. On a single $4 plant sold online, 2.9% plus $0.30 comes to $0.42, more than a tenth of the sale. On the $11 three-plant bundle, it is $0.62, about 5.6%.

A bundle price gives your customer a reason to take the third plant and lowers your fee per plant at the same time. There is a longer walk-through of how to set these in bundle pricing for food vendors, and it applies to plants the same way.

Bundle ideas that sell at a plant table:

• Three tomatoes for $11, one cherry, one slicer, one paste.
• A salsa set: a tomato, a jalapeño and a tomatillo, $11.
• A pesto pot trio: three basil varieties, $11.
• A full 1020 tray of 18 for $65, for the customer planting a whole bed.

Check the tray price against your floor before you print the sign. 18 plants at $4 is $72, so $65 works out to $3.61 a plant. That is still above the $3.50 floor for the small-quantity cost, and well above $3.02, twice the $1.51 bulk cost. A flat sale also moves 18 plants in one conversation.

If you already sell starts as a flat to another grower or a shop, the same floor applies: never below twice your cost per pot.

How Many of Your Seedlings Will Actually Sell?

Plan on 5 of every 6 seedlings selling, and price as if the sixth costs you money, because it does. With 1 in 6 unsold, the $1.75 tomato start really costs $2.10 per plant you sell.

Plants go unsold for predictable reasons:

• Timing. A late cold snap keeps shoppers home, or your plants arrive after gardeners have already planted.
• Too many of one variety. Twenty of one pepper and two of another usually ends with the wrong one left over.
• Plants that stretched. A start that got tall and floppy in the pot stops looking like a good buy.

The NC State bulletin is blunt about the last one: know when to throw out poor quality plants, and grow them robust and in proportion to the container, and you can potentially sell them all. A leggy tomato at a lower price still tells customers something about your table.

Track the number. Count what you brought and what you took home every market day, by variety. After two weekends you will know your real sell-through, and you can swap the 5-in-6 guess for your own figure in the step-by-step pricing above.

What Does a Season Look Like at Three Sizes?

At $4 a plant with 5 of 6 selling, 6 trays leaves about $171 over supplies, 30 trays about $985, and 60 trays about $1,969. Bulk prices cut the cost per pot from $1.75 to $1.51 from the 30-tray size up, so the two larger seasons keep more of each $4 sale.

Swipe sideways for all seven columns.

Built from the September 22, 2026 Johnny's Selected Seeds prices above. "Left over supplies" is before booth fees, card fees, electricity for lights and heat mats, labels and your time. The 5-in-6 sell-through is an example to replace with your own count.

Those numbers are why seedlings work as a side product rather than a whole business. The window is short, and the money arrives in a few weekends around your last frost date.

What Do Card and Platform Fees Take From a Seedling Sale?

On a $12 order of three plants, card processing takes between $0.46 and $0.65 on the four setups in the table below, depending on how it is paid, and Etsy takes $1.59. The difference matters more on plants than on most products, because the tickets are small.

Scroll right for all eight columns.

We checked every rate on the company's own page on September 22, 2026: findhomegrown.com/signup, squareup.com/us/en/pricing, shopify.com/pricing and etsy.com/sell. Monthly totals use annual billing. The Etsy row assumes the three plants sell as one bundle listing and no Offsite Ads fee, and its $1.59 leaves out the 6.5% and processing Etsy also charges on any shipping you add. The Square row is priced as a card reader for in-person sales at your table, plus the card reader you have to buy.

Read the table by how you actually sell:

• Cash and a card reader at the table is the cheapest per sale, at $0.46 on a $12 order with Square's 2.6% plus 15 cents. It only works while you are standing there.
• Pre-orders online cost more per sale, because the online card rates checked here are 2.9% plus 30 cents at Homegrown and Shopify Basic, 3% plus $0.25 at Etsy and 3.3% plus 30 cents on Square's free plan. What you buy is plants that are paid for before you load the car.
• Etsy is built for shipping, and shipping a live seedling is hard. Its fee stack of $0.20 per listing, 6.5% per sale and 3% plus $0.25 processing makes it the most expensive channel here for a $4 plant.

How Do You Take Seedling Pre-Orders Without Living in Your Messages?

Put your varieties, quantities and $4 price on a page people can order from, and let the page tell them when a variety is gone. Seedlings are the product where that matters most: the popular varieties can go early in the morning, and the people who missed them want to reserve next week's.

Many growers handle that through text threads and Facebook messages, which means Thursday night spent checking whether you still have the Cherokee Purple against twenty separate conversations. A Homegrown storefront is $10 per month billed annually with no percentage fees beyond standard payment processing (2.9% + $0.30, paid by you, never added to the customer's total). Compare that to Shopify Basic at $29 a month billed yearly plus 2.9% + 30¢ processing for a full website you have to build, or Etsy's 6.5% transaction fee plus 3% and $0.25 processing on a product that does not ship well.

What it does for a plant table:

• One listing per variety with a quantity. Set 12 Sungold starts, and once 12 are claimed the listing stops taking orders.
• Paid before pickup. Customers pay when they order, so a reserved plant is a sold plant, not a maybe.
• Pickup at your market or your driveway. You set the pickup times and places.
• One link for everything you sell. If you also sell eggs, bread or jam, they sit on the same page as your starts.

Honest bounds: Homegrown does not help you grow starts, pick varieties or register to sell plants in your state. Customers create a Homegrown account to place their first order. There is no timed release or countdown feature for opening a batch. Your storefront is listed on the Homegrown marketplace, but plan on most orders coming from people you send to your own link, from the sign at your table or the post you share.

When Does Seedling Pricing Change in the Season?

Seedling demand peaks in the weeks right around your last frost date and falls off once most gardens are planted. Timing, more than price, decides how many plants you sell at $4.

Get your local last frost date from your state's extension service, then count back from it to set sowing dates, so your plants are the right size when shoppers are ready to plant. The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map answers a different question: which perennial herbs and plants survive your winter. How the season usually runs for a small plant table:

• Early season. Cool-weather crops like cabbage, broccoli and lettuce sell first. Tomatoes and peppers sell to the eager early planters.
• Peak. The weeks right after your last frost date. Full price, and your best-selling varieties go early.
• Late. Gardens are full. Sales slow for everything except replacements and herbs.

When sales slow, you have three honest choices: pot the healthy ones up into a bigger pot and sell them as larger plants at a higher price, move the rest in a flat deal, or compost the ones that have stretched. Cutting the price on tired plants trains your regulars to wait for the end of the season.

What Costs Never Show Up on a Supply Receipt?

Electricity, labels, water, booth fees and your time never show up in the per-pot cost, and together they are why your price needs to be about twice your supply cost, not just above it. None of them are large per plant, but all of them are real.

Work each one out once:

• Grow lights and heat mats. Watts x hours a day x days x your electric rate per kilowatt-hour, divided by 1,000. Your rate is on your power bill. Divide the result by the plants on that shelf.
• Labels. A plant stake with the variety name is what lets a tomato sell at $4 instead of looking like a garden leftover. Price your pack and divide.
• Booth fees. A weekly market fee divided by the plants you sell that day. A slow weekend can double it per plant.
• Your time. Sowing, potting up, watering twice a day in hot weather, loading and unloading. It is the cost that is easiest to leave out.
• Losses you did not plan for. A tray knocked over in the car, a hot afternoon in the truck bed.

The NC State bulletin makes a point that belongs here too: let the foliage sell the plant, but let the signage sell the pack or flat. Its sign carries growing basics like days to maturity and spacing. Add the price and the three-for deal to that sign, and it is a cost that earns itself back.

What Pricing Mistakes Do New Seedling Vendors Make?

The costliest mistake is pricing from the seed packet instead of the finished pot, which leads to $2 plants that barely cover their own soil. A $2 start costs $1.75 to grow and leaves you 25 cents before a single fee.

Other mistakes that cost new plant vendors money:

• Pricing each variety differently. Five prices on one table slows every sale. One $4 price with a bundle is faster.
• Forgetting the unsold plants. Your cost is per plant sold, not per plant grown.
• Charging the same for a jumbo pot. A 5.25-inch pot costs more than twice as much to grow as a 3.5-inch pot.
• Growing too many of one thing. A mix of cherry, slicer and paste tomatoes sells better than 40 of one variety.
• Selling only on market day. If a customer cannot reserve a variety, the ones who miss out may buy it somewhere else.
• Underpricing to match a big-box store. Your named varieties and local growing are the reason people come to your table. Price for what you are selling, then check the going rate.

When you are ready to raise a price you set too low, raising prices without losing customers walks through how to say it.

How Do You Know Your Seedling Price Is Right?

Your price is right when your best varieties sell out by midday and fewer than 1 in 6 plants go home with you. Sell out in the first hour and you are probably too cheap. Carry home a third of the table and it is timing, variety or price, in that order.

The signals to watch each market day:

• What sold out, and when. Write the time down.
• What people asked for that you did not have. That is next spring's seed order.
• Whether anyone blinked at $4. If nobody ever does, try $5 on your hardest-to-find variety.
• How often a customer buys three. If most buy one, move the bundle sign to eye level.

After one full season you will have your own cost per pot, your own sell-through and your own sell-out times. Those three numbers set next year's price better than any guide, including this one.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much should I sell tomato seedlings for?

Sell tomato seedlings in a 3.5-inch pot for $4, and try $5 on named heirloom varieties the garden center does not carry. A 3.5-inch tomato start costs about $1.75 to grow at small-quantity supplier prices, so $4 leaves room for plants that do not sell and for card fees.

How much does it cost to grow one seedling for sale?

A vegetable start in a 3.5-inch pot costs about $1.75 in seed, pot, potting mix and tray at small-quantity prices, and about $1.51 in bulk, based on Johnny's Selected Seeds prices checked September 22, 2026. Potting mix is the largest part at about $0.87 a pot. That figure does not include electricity, labels or your time.

Is $1 or $2 too cheap for a seedling?

Yes, for a plant in its own 3.5-inch pot. At $2 you keep about 25 cents over supplies before any fee, and a single $2 online sale then pays about $0.36 in card processing, so you lose about 11 cents on every plant. A $1 or $2 price only makes sense for plants in small cells, where the mix and container cost a fraction of a 3.5-inch pot.

How much should I charge for a flat of seedlings?

A standard 1020 tray holds 18 plants in 3.5-inch pots, which is $72 at $4 each. A flat price of $65, or $3.61 a plant, rewards the bulk buyer and still sits above twice your supply cost. Set your flat price by checking it against double your own cost per pot.

Should seedling prices be the same for every variety?

For the same pot size, yes, in most cases. Tomato, pepper and basil starts cost within 20 cents of each other to grow, so one price keeps your sign and your change-making simple. Save a higher price for a genuinely hard-to-find variety or a larger pot.

Can I sell seedlings online for local pickup?

Yes. Many plant vendors list their varieties with quantities on an order page, take payment when the customer orders, and hand the plants over at the market or at home. Card processing online runs about 3% plus 25 to 30 cents per order (2.9% plus 30 cents on Homegrown), so bundling plants into one order keeps that cost down.

Related Reading

More on growing and pricing plants and produce for a local market:

• How to Sell Plants and Seedlings at Farmers Markets: what to grow, equipment, licensing and where to sell.
• How to Sell Seedlings and Transplants at a Farmers Market: best-selling starts, growing timeline and booth display.
• How to Sell Potted Herb Plants at a Farmers Market: which herbs sell and how to present them.
• How to Price Vegetables at a Farm Stand (2026 Price Guide): the same pricing method for the harvest that follows.
• Bundle Pricing: How to Build a Bundle That Increases Your Average Order: how to set three-for and set prices that sell.

Where Should Your Seedling List Live Before Market Day?

Your seedling list belongs on a page customers can order from, so your best varieties are reserved and paid for before Saturday. That turns "sold out by 9" into "picked up by 9."

The work before spring is short. Most of it is a one-evening job with your seed order and a calculator, and the rest is putting the list somewhere customers can find it between markets.

1. Cost one pot with your own receipts. Use the five lines above and your real bag of mix.
2. Set $4, three for $11, and a flat price. Check each one against twice your cost.
3. Put the varieties and quantities where people can order. Start your Homegrown storefront at $10 a month billed annually, list each variety with its quantity, and share the link from your table sign. List each bundle, like the salsa set, the pesto trio or a full tray, as its own product at its own price and quantity.
4. Count what comes home. Write down what you brought and what you sold each market day, by variety, and use it to set next spring's quantities and price.

If you do those four things, you walk into your first spring market knowing your cost per pot, your floor price and which varieties are already spoken for.