How much to charge

[Qweaver]

You'd think with several years of sawing under my belt that I'd know how to charge for sawn lumber.  But it's still a guessing game for me.  I'm currently sawing 36"+ dia. poplar that is making high quality nearly knot free 1/4 sawn boards.
A visitor looked at the stack today and asked how much I wanted per board.  If I count the time to drive the 40 miles round trip to take my tractor and load the logs and transport them to my mill site.  It took a total of four round trips.  Plus sawing and stacking time.  Plus fuel for the truck and saw.  The cost to produce the boards is getting pretty high...and hard to calculate.  I'd think that anything higher than $.50 a BdFt  might look to be too high to the buyer.  That would make a 1x10x8' poplar board cost $3.30  I'll bet if I do some accurate accounting that $.50 a BdFt will not allow me to make much money.  But at $.75 a BdFt and $5.00 for the same board, the customer may back out.  What do you charge.

[Den-Den]

$0.75 per bd-ft for nearly knot free quarter-sawn material does not sound high to me.  If you don't make money on the sale, might as well keep the wood for yourself.

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

I sell a 1x8x10 Pine board at $3.80. Thats 57 cents a BF.
I sell Poplar at 65 cents. Where I live in S.C. we have SOOOOO much Poplar and I get a BUNCH of free Poplar logs.
Other mills in my area ask 75 cents for their Poplar.....their asking......I'm selling.

[customsawyer]

If yours is quarter sawn I would not let it go for less than $2.00/bf green off of the mill. If you dry it raise the price.

[Qweaver]

$0.75 per bd-ft for nearly knot free quarter-sawn material does not sound high to me.  If you don't make money on the sale, might as well keep the wood for yourself.

This one of the main reasons that I'm going to quit and sell my saws.  We are done building so I'm sawing a shed full of lumber for myself and doing other things after that.   I'm going to do the math to figure out how I can make a good profit on the logs I have to saw and only sell if I can make that profit.

[beenthere]

A visitor looked at the stack today and asked how much I wanted per board.

What did you tell the visitor, after he asked?

[Nomad]

     Down here Tractor Supply is selling rough sawn 1x6 pine for a buck a bf.  Prices for anything else go up from there.

[Qweaver]

A visitor looked at the stack today and asked how much I wanted per board.

What did you tell the visitor, after he asked?

I said I'd set a price after they made a list of what they wanted.

[WDH]

I sell it for $1.50 to $2.50 based on grade.  However, I do not sell much as I deal mostly with woodworkers, not barn siders. 

[Mt406]

Cost of DF or pine here is 385 to 400  a 1000.    I figger I have .10 handling  by the time I have it on the mill.  Labor cutting .30 for 2x6 2x8  .40 for 1x6 1x8  then I add 30%  for profit.