The hay bill is bigger than last year's, and so is the electric bill. Then a boarder asks whether board is going up. So how much should you charge for board?
TL;DR
A fair board price pays for four things: your hours and your staff's, what you buy for the horses, the barn's bills, and the wear on buildings and machines. Put a profit on top, then sales tax if your state charges it. Price extras on their own list, and raise the price every one to three years.
The method
This is the full-cost method of two German state farm advisory services, LEL Baden-Württemberg and LfL Bavaria. They build the price from the costs up, per horse per month, and it works in any country.
Count every hour, yours too
Work is the biggest cost of a boarding barn. In LEL's example it is more than half of all costs. It is also the cost most barns leave out, because the owner does the work for nothing.
Count it anyway. A stalled horse on full board takes about 20 minutes of work a day: mucking the stall, feeding, haying, turning out, bringing in, blanketing. Twelve horses is four hours a day, every day. That's about 122 hours a month.
Price those hours at what a good barn hand would cost you, not at the minimum wage. Take the top of the usual pay, add the employer's costs (payroll taxes and workers' comp), then add a fifth for paid vacation and sick days. In the US that's about $26 an hour.
Count costs the way you buy them
Nobody knows how many pounds of hay one horse eats in a month. You do know what you bought last year. Start there:
- Hay: 2,190 small square bales a year (about 44 lb each) at $8 is $17,520.
- Grain: 16.5 bags of 50 lb a month at $20 is $330.
- Bedding: about 185 bags of shavings a month at $6.50 is $1,200.
Turn each into a month and divide by the horses. With 12 horses, that's $122 of hay, $28 of grain and $100 of bedding per horse.
Then the barn's bills: electric and water, insurance, the accountant, property tax, pasture rent, repairs. Divide a year of them by 12 months and by the horses. $15,100 a year over 12 horses is about $105 a horse a month.
Buildings and machines: spread them over their life
A barn or a tractor costs you nothing this month, until it needs replacing. So spread its value over the years it lasts. That's depreciation: the value divided by the years.
- Barn and stalls: $210,000 over 25 years is $8,400 a year.
- Arena: $70,000 over 20 years is $3,500 a year.
- Horse walker: $25,000 over 15 years is about $1,667 a year.
- Tractor and machines: $40,000 over 10 years is $4,000 a year.
That's $17,567 a year, or about $122 a horse a month. If you lease the barn, the lease goes in the bills instead. Paying off a loan? Put the interest in the bills too.
Profit on top, then sales tax
Covering your costs is breaking even, not running a business. You need a margin for empty stalls, a bad hay year and the next roof. We use 20% on top of every cost, your work included.
Sales tax comes last. Most states don't tax horse board, so most barns add nothing. A few do: New Jersey is one. If yours does, add your state's rate on top. Your accountant will know which applies.
A worked example
Here's the 12-horse barn above. The numbers are examples, not a guide to what barns charge. Put in your own.
| Line | A horse a month |
|---|---|
| Hay, grain and bedding | $250 |
| Barn bills | $105 |
| Buildings and machines | $122 |
| Work: 122 hours at $26, over 12 horses | $264 |
| Costs | $741 |
| Profit, 20%, rounded up | $149 |
| Price | $890 |
That's a monthly price, the way US barns quote board. If your state taxes board, add the tax on top of the $890.
Now take the work line out. The same sum gives about $575. That is the price at which your own day is worth nothing.
Price the extras on their own
Keep the board price for what every horse gets. Anything only some boarders want goes on a price list: holding for the farrier, blanketing, the horse walker, clipping. Price each one the same way: the minutes it takes at your hourly rate, plus anything you buy for it.
Fifteen minutes of blanketing a day is about 7.6 hours a month, or $198 at $26 an hour.
Raise the price on a schedule
Costs rise every year, and so should the price. LEL's advice: review it every year, and change it at least every three. Raise it for all boarders at once, in writing, with the reasons. A small raise on a known date is easier to accept than a big one after five quiet years.
Do the sum in two minutes
Our free boarding price calculator does all of this. Type in your horses, your hours a day and what an hour is worth, and open the costs to enter them the way you buy them. You get the price, your work's share of it, and a PDF and an Excel sheet to keep or show your boarders. No sign-up needed.
Once you have your price, Nose charges it to each horse on its own billing day, prorates partial months, and adds the extras as you log them. It's free to start, no card.
