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. When the quote arrives as $/MBF or $/linear foot instead, use this same lumber price calculator to put it back on one basis. 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.
Names for the same math: a lumber price calculator or board feet price calculator by any label
Shop owners search for this page under half a dozen names — a hardwood price calculator, a softwood cost calculator, a board feet price calculator for a tally sheet, a lumber cost estimator, a budget sheet for the whole order — and every one of them lands on the same two arithmetic moves: multiply board feet by a rate, or divide a total back into a rate. Everything below is about keeping those two moves honest when the quote in front of you is written in a different unit than the wood.
Cost per board foot calculator: 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.
How does a price per thousand board feet lumber MBF calculator work?
Mills and timber buyers print money per thousand, not per board, so before any $/MBF quote is comparable it has to pass through a lumber MBF calculator — which is really just two divisions. This cost per board foot calculator starts from the footage: a $/MBF rate divided by 1,000 is a $/BF rate, and the conversion itself is one line — MBF board feet are thousand-board feet, so MBF = BF ÷ 1,000 (2,500 BF is 2.5 MBF; a $1,300 thousand is $1.30 a board foot). The one number the ticket never shows is how much wood each priced foot contains, so a $/MBF rate only becomes a $/linear-foot price after you put in the size being bought.
Board feet to linear foot price conversion: the size decides the rate
Once the MBF board feet are on the table, the MBF to LF calculator step is one division — 1,000 BF divided by the board feet each foot carries. Read MBF board feet down to feet of lumber and every size gives up a different length. At nominal footage a 2x4 runs 0.667 BF per foot, so an MBF is 1,500 feet of it; a 2x10 runs 1.667 BF per foot, so the same MBF is barely 600 feet:
| Size | BF per LF (nominal) | LF in 1 MBF (nominal) | BF per LF (surfaced) | LF in 1 MBF (surfaced) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2x4 | 0.667 | 1,500 ft | 0.4375 | 2,286 ft |
| 2x6 | 1.000 | 1,000 ft | 0.6875 | 1,455 ft |
| 2x8 | 1.333 | 750 ft | 0.90625 | 1,103 ft |
| 2x10 | 1.667 | 600 ft | 1.15625 | 865 ft |
| 2x12 | 2.000 | 500 ft | 1.40625 | 711 ft |
Same money in, wildly different stacks out — which is exactly why two quotes written as $/MBF and $/LF can’t be compared until the linear feet are turned back into board feet.
Board foot price to linear foot price calculator
The chain is two multiplications: take the $/MBF rate, divide by 1,000 to get $/BF, then multiply by the BF each linear foot carries from the table above. On the $900-per-MBF bundle from the last section — $900 ÷ 1,000 = $0.90 per board foot — a 2x10 at 1.667 BF per foot quotes at 0.90 × 1.667 = $1.50 per linear foot, while the 2x4 in the same truck quotes at 0.90 × 0.667 = $0.60 per linear foot. Run it backwards whenever the dealer leads with feet: a $1.50/LF sticker on 2x10 is 1.50 ÷ 1.667 = $0.90 per BF, and a $1.50/LF sticker on 2x6 is 1.50 ÷ 1.000 = $1.50 per BF — identical sentences, 67% apart in price. The board feet to linear feet page runs the same footage math without money attached.
How does a wood price calculator handle rough-sawn lumber, slabs, and standing timber?
Same wood, three different tickets — three different board foot cost calculator questions. Whatever a dealer calls the quote — a rough cut lumber price calculator case, a wood slab price calculator case, a timber-by-the-MBF case — the way back to a comparable number is the same: find the board feet being priced, then divide. That single habit is also what turns a generic wood price calculator into a lumber budget you can defend at the counter.
Rough-sawn stock: you buy the kerf you’ll plane away
Rough lumber is billed on its full sawn size, so a rough 2x6 is really 2″ × 6″ until you surface it. That bundle of 40 2x6x8 primes from the quote section is 320 nominal BF rough but only 220 BF after surfacing to 1.5″ × 5.5″ — the same pile priced at $0.90 per BF in one stack and about $1.31 per surfaced BF in the other. Price rough stock at the surfaced figure and every project built from planed boards comes in over budget; thickness conversions are laid out in the hardwood thickness guide.
Wood slabs: usually not a board-foot sale at all
Slabs and live-edge material are typically priced per piece or per running foot of a stated width and thickness, not by the thousand — a wood slab price calculator is just the $/pc path of the quote-basis converter above, with the slab’s own board feet (thickness × average width × length ÷ 12) doing the dividing. Wide, thick, and irregular is the point of a slab, so its per-BF number will never match the 4/4 FAS column, and that’s not a bad price — it’s a different product.
Standing timber: priced by scaled MBF, before the wood exists
A timber price calculator and a timber cost calculator are the same two numbers in different clothes: a buyer scales logs in log-rule board feet, quotes dollars per MBF (per thousand of those scale feet), and pays before the wood is ever sawn — 12 MBF of Doyle-scale volume at a $900 thousand is 12 × $900 = $10,800 on a handshake. Two cautions the ticket won’t tell you: log rules are yield estimates, not the boards a mill will actually get, and scale and true solid volume are different measures entirely — the cubic side of that split is worked through at board feet to cubic feet, and the scaling rules themselves on the log board foot calculator.
What does a real lumber budget look like?
Here's how I build a lumber price estimate for 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.
How do I convert $/MBF to $/BF or a linear foot price?
Divide $/MBF by 1,000 for $/BF — $900/MBF is $0.90 per board foot — then multiply by the board feet each linear foot carries: 1.667 for a nominal 2x10, so $0.90 × 1.667 = $1.50/LF. The size’s BF-per-foot factor is the whole conversion; the table under "How does a price per thousand board feet lumber MBF calculator work?" above lists it for common sizes.
How is rough-sawn lumber priced differently from surfaced stock?
Rough lumber is billed at its full sawn size, so a rough 2x6 measures 2″ × 6″; surfaced, the same board is 1.5″ × 5.5″ and yields only 220 BF from the 320 nominal BF billed on a bundle of 40 × 2x6x8. Run a rough cut lumber price calculator on nominal numbers and price what you buy, not what hangs on the wall after planing.
How do timber buyers price standing logs?
By scaled volume, not by the tree. A buyer scales logs in log-rule board feet, then quotes dollars per MBF (per thousand of those scale feet), so 12 MBF at $900 per thousand is $10,800. Log rules are yield estimates — the board feet invoiced depend on how the mill recovers the log, which is the difference explained on the log board foot calculator.