Budget your lumber order
Lumber Cost Calculator
Enter your boards and a price per board foot for an instant project budget — pick a species to auto-fill a reference price or type your dealer's quote. New to the math? See how to calculate board feet.
How does lumber pricing work?
Hardwood is almost always priced per board foot, so total cost is simply board feet × price per BF. The catch is that you should price the board feet you actually buy — including a waste allowance — not just the net board feet in your finished piece.
Reference prices by species (USD, planning only)
| Species | $/BF (approx.) |
|---|---|
| Poplar | $4.00 |
| Soft Maple | $5.50 |
| Red Oak | $6.50 |
| Ash | $6.00 |
| Hard Maple | $7.50 |
| White Oak | $8.50 |
| Cherry | $9.00 |
| Walnut | $13.00 |
These are starting points, not quotes. Grade, thickness, surfacing (S2S/S4S), and region all move the number. Read how to buy lumber by board foot before you commit.
How do you calculate price per board foot from any quote?
One division: price per board foot = what you pay ÷ the board feet in the order. Everything else is just making the two sides of that fraction mean the same thing, because a dealer may hand you the price in $/BF, $/MBF (per thousand board feet, so divide by 1,000), per piece, or per linear foot. Half the price comparisons people lose are lost here: two quotes that look like different numbers are the same number wearing different units. Dimensional lumber is quoted by the piece or the linear foot, mill runs quote by the thousand board feet, and only hardwood dealers hand you a clean $/BF. Take one fixed bundle — 40 pieces of 2×6×8′, which is 320 linear feet, 320 BF nominal and 220 BF at the surfaced 1.5″ × 5.5″ — and watch three formats land on one total.
| How the quote is written | Arithmetic on this bundle | You pay | Per nominal BF | Per surfaced BF |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $0.90 per linear foot | 320 LF × $0.90 | $288.00 | $0.90 | $1.31 |
| $7.20 per piece | 40 pc × $7.20 | $288.00 | $0.90 | $1.31 |
| $900.00 per MBF | 320 ÷ 1,000 × $900 | $288.00 | $0.90 | $1.31 |
| $0.90 per board foot | 320 BF × $0.90 | $288.00 | $0.90 | $1.31 |
All four are the same price, and the arithmetic proves it: 320 × $0.90 = 40 × $7.20 = 0.32 × $900 = $288.00. The only thing that changes between dealers is which of those four sentences they chose. So before you compare two quotes, convert both to dollars divided by the board feet you actually put in the project — that is the one column the invoice never shows you, and the one this page’s calculator does the division for.
$/BF is the only basis that stays comparable across thickness. Change a 2×6 to a 2×10 and the linear-foot and per-piece prices barely move while the board feet nearly double — so a wider board always looks cheaper per BF, and a dealer quoting per LF never has to explain why.
What does a real lumber budget look like?
Here's how I price an actual order. Say a walnut bookshelf works out to 23 net board feet. I never buy net — there's always a knot or split to cut around — so I add a 20% waste factor and price 28 board feet. At the $13/BF walnut reference above, that's 28 × $13 = $364 in wood, before tax and delivery.
The single biggest budget error I see is pricing the net number and getting blindsided at the register. Nail down accurate footage first in the hardwood board foot calculator, then let this tool turn it into dollars — change the species and watch a poplar version of the same shelf land near $112 while walnut runs $364 for identical parts.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate lumber cost per board foot?
Multiply total board feet by the price per board foot. For 25 board feet of white oak at $8.50 per BF, that is 25 × 8.50 = $212.50 before tax and delivery. If the dealer quoted a different unit, convert it first — $8,500 per MBF is the same $8.50 per BF.
What does $/MBF mean on a lumber quote?
$/MBF is dollars per thousand board feet — the M is the Roman numeral for a thousand, so MBF = 1,000 BF. Divide by 1,000 to get the per-board-foot rate: $3,850 per MBF is $3.85 per BF, which makes a 120 BF order 0.12 × $3,850 = $462.00. Mills and timber buyers quote MBF because a truckload is a few hundred thousand board feet; you and the dealer both end up dividing by the same number.
Should I add waste before pricing?
Yes. Price the board feet you will actually buy, which includes a waste allowance of roughly 15–20% on straight-run stock and more on figured or short-piece work. Pricing only the net footage in your drawing is the single most common way a lumber order goes over budget — the factors are broken out in the waste factor guide.