Maple Syrup Sugarbush Profit Calculator

What does your sugarbush really earn, per tap and per hour?

Enter your taps, sap and costs. The page turns sap into syrup with the rule of 86, adds fuel, supplies, equipment wear, fees and your own time, and shows profit per tap, per hour and per gallon, what a poor and a good season do to it, and whether reverse osmosis would pay for itself.

Your numbers are used in this browser tab and never leave your device. The values are examples; replace them with yours.

1. Where the syrup goes

One channel per line: name, price per gallon of syrup (a pint at $13 is $104 a gallon), packaging per gallon, percent of sales lost to fees, share of your crop.

Sales channels

2. Your sugarbush and sugarhouse

Taps

Sap per tap per season (gallons)

Sap sugar content (Brix %)

Spouts and drops per tap per year ($)

Tubing system cost per tap ($)

Hours per tap per season (tapping, lines, collecting)

Your labour rate per hour ($)

Evaporator rate (gallons of sap per hour)

Fuel energy per unit (BTU; a cord of hardwood is about 20,000,000)

Fuel price per unit ($)

Evaporator efficiency (%)

Evaporator and sugarhouse equipment cost ($)

Other costs per season (insurance, licences, fees) ($)

Reverse osmosis unit cost ($; 0 if none)

Concentrate after reverse osmosis (Brix %)

I already use reverse osmosis (otherwise the headline is without it and the comparison shows the difference)

Edit the numbers, then click Work out the season.

Result

Poor, average and good season

Season	Syrup (gal)	Revenue	Before your labour	After your labour	Per tap	Hours

With and without reverse osmosis

	Fuel	Hours	Reverse osmosis cost	Before your labour	After your labour

By sales channel

Channel	Gallons	Revenue	Net of packaging and fees	Net per gallon

How it decides, and what it leaves out

Syrup: sap gallons times Brix over 86 (the rule of 86). Sap per tap is the biggest input and varies year to year; the season table shows 60% and 130% of what you enter.
Fuel: the heat to bring sap to a boil and evaporate its water (about 1,150 BTU a pound) divided by the evaporator efficiency, priced per unit of fuel. Check it against the cords or gallons you actually burn.
Labour: hours per tap, plus boiling hours from your evaporator rate, plus bottling. Shown before and after paying yourself the wage you enter.
Equipment: tubing wears out over 10 years and the evaporator over 15 here, spread evenly per season.
Reverse osmosis: concentrates the sap to the Brix you enter before boiling, which cuts fuel and boiling hours; the unit, membranes and power are charged against it.
Not decided: grading, licensing, labelling and food-safety rules for selling syrup in your state, taxes, land, sap quality over the season, vacuum pumps and their power, and the cost of capital. Prices and costs here are your inputs, not market quotes.

Common questions

How much money can you make per tap of maple syrup?

It depends on sap per tap, sugar content, your sales channel and what you count your own time as. Many small sugarmakers net a few dollars a tap before labour and far less after it. This page models a whole season: sap to syrup by the rule of 86, fuel, supplies, equipment wear, fees and labour, then reports profit per tap, per hour worked and per gallon.

What is the rule of 86 for maple syrup?

Divide 86 by the sugar content (Brix) of the sap to get the gallons of sap needed for one gallon of syrup. Sap at 2 percent needs about 43 gallons; sap at 3 percent about 29. A higher Brix cuts boiling time and fuel directly, which is why sugar content matters more than tap count for cost.

Is reverse osmosis worth it for a small sugarbush?

It removes water from the sap before the evaporator, so you burn less fuel and boil fewer hours. Against that you pay for the unit, membranes and power. The page compares the season with and without it from your own numbers and gives a payback in years; units tend to pay at larger tap counts and with expensive fuel.

Should I count my own labour?

Show both. Profit before labour is what the operation earns for you; profit after labour at a wage you pick shows whether it beats paying someone, and the per-hour figure tells you what an hour in the sugarhouse is actually worth.

Is my data uploaded?

No. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is sent anywhere. Downloads are files on your own device.