---
title: "Grow or Buy Microgreens? The Answer Is an Hourly Rate, and It Is $23.60"
description: "Seed alone makes growing look 11 times cheaper. Add medium, power, failures and your time at $20 an hour and the saving against the cheapest retail is 8 percent."
url: "https://microgreensguru.com/blog/grow-or-buy-microgreens/"
lang: "en"
published: "2026-08-12"
modified: "2026-08-12"
author: "Cal Hewitt"
image: "https://microgreensguru.com/og/blog-grow-or-buy-microgreens.jpg"
---

# Grow or Buy Microgreens? The Answer Is an Hourly Rate, and It Is $23.60

[Cal Hewitt](https://microgreensguru.com/about/cal-hewitt/)Published August 12, 2026Checked August 12, 2026

- comparison
- economics
- growing
- buying

![A home-grown 1020 tray of microgreens on a kitchen counter next to a shop-bought clamshell of the same crop, the tray canopy uneven and the clamshell contents level and uniform, photographed side on at counter height in flat daylight](https://microgreensguru.com/images/blog/grow-or-buy-microgreens.jpg)

**Compare seed to a shop price and home growing looks eleven times cheaper. Add the lines that comparison leaves out and the saving against the cheapest retail drops to 8 percent.**

**Here is the same tray, costed one line at a time.**

## What to actually do

- **Work out your own hourly rate first.** If your time is worth much more than about $24 an hour and you are doing this purely to save money, buy the cheap end of retail.
- **If you are growing for freshness, flavor or the pleasure of it, the economics barely matter** and this page has answered a question you were not asking.
- **Weigh your first few trays.** Published yields for the same crop differ threefold, and yours is the only one that matters.
- **Count the medium, the power and the failures.** They turn an 11-fold saving into a 2-fold one before your time is priced at all.
- **Amortize the [equipment](https://microgreensguru.com/blog/microgreens-equipment-list/).** Nobody in the sample did, and lights and shelving are the largest single outlay.
- **Compare per ounce, on the same crop.** Not tray against clamshell, and never against a pack whose weight is not printed.
- **Do not expect a nutrition advantage either way.** Nothing published supports one.

## The saving, as you add the lines nobody adds

**Using the median figures: a tray yielding 7.055 ounces with $1.08 of seed.**

Cost of a home-grown ounce, adding one line at a time

| What is included | Per tray | Per ounce | Against the cheapest retail |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Seed only | $1.08 | **$0.15** | **11.0x cheaper** |
| Seed and medium | $4.08 | $0.58 | 2.9x cheaper |
| Seed, medium and electricity | $4.82 | $0.68 | 2.5x cheaper |
| Plus a 1 in 5 failure rate | $6.02 | $0.85 | 2.0x cheaper |
| Plus your own time at $20 an hour | **$11.02** | **$1.56** | **1.1x cheaper** |

**The observed retail band runs $1.69 to $3.50 an ounce.** So the same decision is a **91% saving** or an **8% saving** depending entirely on which lines you count.

**The break-even is the useful number.** At the assumptions above, home growing exactly equals the cheapest observed retail when your time is worth **$23.60 an hour**. **Below that, growing saves money. Above it, buying the cheap end of retail wins on pure economics.**

**And that figure is generous to the home side**, because the ladder above stops before equipment. Lights, trays and shelving are real money and are not in it.

## Every assumption in that table, stated

**Every one of these is a choice, so here they all are in the open:**

- **Yield 7.055 oz and seed $1.08** are the medians, from [39 crops that publish a yield](https://microgreensguru.com/blog/what-a-tray-actually-yields/) and 50 that publish a seed cost.
- **Medium $3.00** is a 10 by 20 coir mat.
- **Electricity $0.74** assumes a 100 watt fixture, 16 hours a day, 10 days, serving four trays, at the EIA average of 18.44 cents per kilowatt-hour. **Change the fixture or the trays per fixture and this line moves a lot.**
- **A 1 in 5 failure rate is an assumption, not a measurement**, because nobody publishes one. It raises costs by 25%.
- **Labor at 15 minutes a tray and $20 an hour** is a commercial extension budget's assumption, not a household's.
- **No equipment amortization at all**, which is a deliberate omission and is discussed below.

**Change any of these and the answer moves**, which is why every one of them is listed.

## What the usual comparison leaves out

**Of three cost comparisons checked, none calculates equipment depreciation and none includes a failure rate.**

**One says trays and domes are reusable indefinitely.** One lists initial items without amortizing them. **One's per-tray total contains only seed and soil.** All three sell something: a starter kit, seeds, or both.

**The characteristic error is an unmatched comparison**: an asserted home yield and cost set against an unlocated "store price", or against a retail pack of unknown weight, with crop, cultivar, fresh-weight yield, harvest stage, light, medium, electricity, failure, amortization and labor all undisclosed.

**A supermarket listing that gives only a pint makes the point.** A container volume cannot become a price per ounce without a labeled net weight, which is exactly the trap [the buying guide](https://microgreensguru.com/blog/buying-microgreens/) warns about.

**For contrast, a genuine costing model exists** and it is commercial rather than domestic: a university extension budget that carries seed, medium, fertilizer, electricity, labor, repairs, depreciation, interest and overhead. **It shows what a full ownership cost looks like**, and [it is worked through separately](https://microgreensguru.com/blog/why-microgreens-are-expensive/).

## The yields being compared do not agree either

**A greenhouse trial reports 3.74 to 7.09 ounces for small-seed crops under its stated conditions. A seed seller asserts 9 to 12 ounces from a [broccoli](https://microgreensguru.com/microgreen-types/broccoli/) tray with no comparable protocol on the page.**

**That is a nearly threefold difference in the number the whole comparison rests on**, and it decides the outcome before any cost is counted. If you assume 12 ounces where you will actually get 5, every per-ounce figure you calculate is less than half of what you will really pay.

**Use your own weighed yield after a few cycles.** It is the single input most worth measuring, and it is the one you can measure most easily.

## What growing actually costs in attention

**The evidence is clear that this is not plant-and-forget.** Extension guidance calls microgreens labor-intensive, notes the dense seeding, the need to avoid stretching and disease, and recommends keeping leaves and stems dry through sub-irrigation. Another extension service reports mold with overwatering, says **trays need daily attention**, and advises washing trays between batches.

**That daily attention is what the $20 an hour line is pricing.** Whether it is a cost or a hobby is a question about you rather than about microgreens, and it is why the answer comes out as an hourly rate rather than a verdict.

## Freshness and shelf life, where home has a real edge

**This is where growing wins on something other than money.**

**Cut and packaged [mustard](https://microgreensguru.com/microgreen-types/mustard/) microgreens held good sensory quality for 14 days at 5°C, four days at 10°C, and two days at 15°C.** Another study across six genotypes put fresh-cut shelf life at **no more than 10 days at 5°C**.

**A home tray is cut when you want it.** That is a genuine advantage and it is about timing rather than nutrition: the same work found that at 5°C antioxidant activity did not change significantly over the storage period, while warmer storage shortened sensory life sharply. **Time and temperature change quality; there is no published universal nutrient loss rate.**

**And nobody has shown home-grown is more nutritious.** Composition varies by genotype and growing conditions, which is not the same as either route winning on a fresh-weight serving.

## Safety, where neither route wins

**Both are raw produce and neither is categorically safer on the evidence.**

**Commercial microgreens are covered produce under the federal Produce Safety Rule** unless an exemption applies, so a grower operates under a food-safety framework a household does not have. **A household controls harvest timing and its own kitchen hygiene**, while retail adds handling and cold-chain time. **Both of those are plausible process differences and neither is a measured net-risk result.**

**One documented retail incident exists**: a 2022 voluntary recall of 1.75 oz organic micro greens across seven states after a supplied soil tested positive for Salmonella, with no illnesses associated. **No documented outbreak from a household tray was located**, which is not evidence of zero risk, because a home case would rarely be traceable.

**Do not import sprout statistics into this.** Federal guidance explicitly distinguishes later-stage, substrate-grown, cut microgreens from sprouts, and the warning that seed-borne bacteria multiply even under sanitary home conditions is written about sprouts.

**On washing, the label decides.** Products marked pre-washed or ready-to-eat have been washed before packaging; an unwashed farmers-market listing says plainly to wash before use. **Washing under running water reduces bacteria and cannot eliminate them**, and soap, detergent and bleach are not for produce.

## What is still genuinely unknown

- **Any home failure rate.** The 1 in 5 above is an assumption because no source publishes one.
- **A matched home-against-retail comparison** holding crop, cultivar, yield conditions and household experience constant. Nobody has done it.
- **Any measured net safety difference** between a home tray and a retail pack.
- **Whether either route is more nutritious** on a fresh-weight serving basis.
- **A universal nutrient loss rate over shelf life.** The measured work covers specific crops, packaging and temperatures.
- **Real household labor time**, as opposed to a commercial budget's 15 minutes a tray.

### Terms on this page

**Amortization.** Spreading the cost of equipment across the trays it will produce. The line every comparison page examined here omits.

**Failure rate.** The share of trays that never become saleable or edible. Assumed at 1 in 5 above because no source publishes one.

**Unmatched comparison.** Setting a home cost against a retail price without holding crop, weight, yield conditions and included costs constant. The characteristic error in this category.

**Break-even hourly rate.** The value of your own time at which growing and buying cost the same. Here $23.60 an hour, on the stated assumptions.

**Produce Safety Rule.** The federal framework covering commercial produce including microgreens, with exemptions. A household is not covered by it and does not have it.

**Sub-irrigation.** Watering from below so leaves and stems stay dry. Recommended by extension guidance to limit disease.

**Sensory quality.** Whether it still looks and tastes acceptable, which is what the shelf-life studies measured, as distinct from nutrient content.

## Sources

Opened 2026-08-12. The cost ladder is arithmetic performed for this page. Its yield and seed figures are this directory's own medians; its medium, electricity, failure and labor lines are assumptions, each stated in full above so they can be replaced.

- [Penn State Extension on growing microgreens](https://extension.psu.edu/growing-microgreens) - that microgreens are labor-intensive, the dense seeding, avoiding stretching and disease, the sub-irrigation recommendation, damping-off under warm humid conditions, the roughly 12 by 20 inch standard tray, and the greenhouse yields of 3.74 to 7.09 oz for small-seed crop examples.
- [Colorado State Extension, Pueblo County, on growing sprouts and microgreens at home](https://pueblo.extension.colostate.edu/growing-sprouts-and-microgreens-at-home/) - mold with overwatering, that trays need daily attention, and washing trays between batches. Plus [the Colorado State home guide (PDF)](https://sam.extension.colostate.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/44/2018/10/Oct-20-2018-Growing-Microgreens.pdf) for the 2 to 3.5 inch container depth, light seed-starting mix and the microgreen against sprout distinction.
- [University of Missouri Extension microgreens budget (PDF)](https://extension.missouri.edu/media/wysiwyg/Extensiondata/Pub/pdf/agguides/agecon/g00693.pdf) - the full commercial costing carrying seed, medium, fertilizer, electricity, labor, repairs, depreciation, interest and overhead, and the source of the 15 minutes at $20 an hour labor assumption used above.
- [Mustard microgreen storage study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36836750/) - good sensory quality for 14 days at 5°C against four days at 10°C and two at 15°C, and that antioxidant activity did not change significantly at 5°C across the storage period. Plus [a six-genotype packaged microgreen study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30298894/) putting fresh-cut shelf life at no more than 10 days at 5°C.
- [A 17-species controlled-environment mineral and yield study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37546245/) - composition differing by genotype and conditions, which is why neither route can be called more nutritious on a fresh-weight serving.
- [FDA produce safety guidance (PDF)](https://www.fda.gov/media/77178/download) - that raw produce can be contaminated in soil or water, after harvest or during preparation, that home handling reduces but cannot eliminate bacteria, that pre-washed and ready-to-eat products need no re-washing, and that soap, detergent and bleach are not for produce.
- [FDA microgreen and sprout guidance (PDF)](https://www.fda.gov/media/102430/download) - the explicit distinction between later-stage substrate-grown cut microgreens and sprouts, and the coverage of commercial microgreens as produce under the Produce Safety Rule.
- [FDA recall notice, December 2022](https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/wegmans-food-markets-inc-announces-voluntary-recall-products-containing-micro-greens-sweet-pea) - the voluntary recall of 1.75 oz organic micro greens across seven states after a supplied soil tested positive for Salmonella, with no associated illnesses.
- Retail observations used for the buy side: [an online farm listing](https://www.unlikelyfarms.com/products) spanning $2.50 an ounce for common crops to $8.99 for nasturtium, [a farmers-market listing](https://ofm.eatfromfarms.com/product/everyday-microgreens) applying a flat clamshell price across different weights and telling buyers to wash before use, and [a supermarket listing](https://shop.sprouts.com/store/sprouts/products/30591161-city-roots-organic-farm-organic-broccoli-microgreens-each) that gives only a pint, which is why a container price cannot become a price per ounce.
- The three comparison pages audited, all of which sell something and none of which amortizes equipment or includes a failure rate: [a starter-kit seller's cost comparison](https://aquagertech.com/blogs/microgreens/microgreens-cost-grow-vs-buy), [a seed seller asserting a 9 to 12 oz broccoli tray at $3.40 of seed and soil](https://shop.wagnergreens.com/blogs/microgreen-blog/can-i-grow-microgreens-at-home-to-save-money), and [a seed company's economics page](https://mpseeds.eu/the_economics_of_growing_microgreens-at_home_vs_buying).

## Keep reading

- The journal

    ### Bulk Microgreen Seeds: Cost Per Tray by Bag Size

    Buying bulk microgreen seeds cuts cost per tray, but only if the bag gets used fast enough. Compare 5 and 25 pound prices, shipping, and weekly tray needs.

    [Read Bulk Microgreen Seeds: Cost Per Tray by Bag Size](https://microgreensguru.com/blog/bulk-microgreen-seeds/)
- The journal

    ### Microgreen Grow Kits Against DIY: The Cheapest Kit Is the Most Expensive

    Priced per unit of growing area, the ranking inverts: the $60 kit is the cheapest and the $20 kit is nearly the dearest. Against assembling it yourself, the sample runs 6 to 40 times.

    [Read Microgreen Grow Kits Against DIY: The Cheapest Kit Is the Most Expensive](https://microgreensguru.com/blog/grow-kits-against-diy/)
- The journal

    ### Herb Microgreens: Slower and Harder, and They Use Less Seed Than Everything Else

    Herb-family crops take a median 19 days against 11.5 for everything else, and 8 of the 9 hardest crops are herbs. They also sow lighter, so the premium is bench time, not seed.

    [Read Herb Microgreens: Slower and Harder, and They Use Less Seed Than Everything Else](https://microgreensguru.com/blog/microgreen-herbs/)
- The journal

    ### Microgreens vs Mushrooms: On Labor Per Pound the Two Overlap, and the Farm-to-Farm Spread Is 10.9-Fold

    Put both crops on labor hours per pound and they land on top of each other. The variation between mushroom farms is 10.9-fold, which is larger than any gap between the crops, so the operator decides this and not the crop.

    [Read Microgreens vs Mushrooms: On Labor Per Pound the Two Overlap, and the Farm-to-Farm Spread Is 10.9-Fold](https://microgreensguru.com/blog/microgreens-vs-mushrooms/)