Farmville: Seed Profitability
This is a post on the profitability of seeds on Facebook’s Farmville by Zynga.
For those of you who know me, you know that I work in the accounting field and needless to say I take an accounting approach to everything, including all the games I love to play. So, after about two days of being introduced to Farmville on Facebook by some family members of mine, I wanted to analyze the market system they had in place and figure out what seeds were most profitable.
In a matter of minutes, I came up with the chart below, which I’ve been using ever since I started. Please keep in mind that the chart assumes that you are farming 24×7 and harvesting on the exact minute that it’s time to harvest. So in theory, you may never reach the max profit for some of the seeds.
Formulae:
Plot Profit/Hour = (Sell – (Plow Cost + Cost))/ Production Time
Plot Profit/Day = Plot Profit/Hour * 24
If you have any questions or feel that I’ve made an error, feel free to comment below. Also, be sure to check out a post coming soon that measures animal/tree profitability.
Liked it
Hi, nice. Can you maybe add the grapes? Also, the table would be more readable when you add some spaces between the colums.
Thanks for the job. Yves
Update: I’ve included the new vegetables.
Super Berries???
Where do you get those?
They were a special release in the past. I reference them in case they are placed into the system again.
This is way out of datea
The chart above is not outdated; as I just updated it today. Please advise what it inaccurate?
I effing love you.
I take it you like the chart?
I thought peas were best income?
Can u do 1 for trees and animakls please
Taking XPs into consideration is also a good idea. This would change around some of the ‘value’ of planting certain crops.
I effing love the chart! Hahaha. And I have to agree, a tree chart and animal chart would be pretty righteous… AND factoring in experience! WHOA XD
I think your Sugar Cane is incorrect. It sells for 239, not 235.
Therefore, the math would then be:
(239-15-165) / 8 = 7.38
Making it the most profitable seed (outside of super berries).
You can view the Experience Cost post here:
http://gameolosophy.com/games/online/farmville-experience-cost/
I’ve made the correction tz, thanks for the heads up.
check the time on peppers, i think they are 48 hrs
sorry…was looking at bell peppers.
can you also do the experience to the cost and profit?
thanks,
Jimmy
Oooh! New green tea!!! Get it on the chart…. quick!! XD
A farmville day is 23 hours (according to other sources on the internet, I haven’t checked myself), so this would make quite some of your calculations incorrect, for example making peas the most profitable crop with 7.65 gold/hour…
@Rim, you need some time to plow, seed, harvest. It’s virtually impossible to do that within a minute or so, even when using all the tractors, costing you more than just a handfull of money.
I have updated the chart according to the updates made recently.
Rice is 72 per day. 3×24 = 72 not 69.
Mack, I see that you have a Experience Cost post chart, but would you also be able to add an Experience \’time cost\’ chart too for the seeds in order to see how many experience points are gained an hour/day if you let the crop grow its entire course?
Mack, I see that you have a Experience Cost post chart, but would you also be able to add an Experience ‘time cost’ chart too for the seeds in order to see how many experience points are gained an hour/day if you let the crop grow its entire course?
there is an error in your accounting, if you are calculating coin profitability with accuracy. you would need to subtract the cost of plowing per hour as well. for example, tomatoes harvest in 8 hours, but there are three opportunities to plant in a 24 hour period, at a cost of 15 coins per plow, seed, and harvest. a 24 hour crop like the grapes has only one cost per 24 hours in terms of plowing, at 15 coins.
so, formulae:
Plot Profit/Hour = [(Sell Value – Cost) -- {(24/x)(15)}]/x , where x is production time
Plot Profit/Day = Plot Profit/Hour * 24
ergo;
Tomatoes: [173-100 - (24/8(15))]/8 = [73 - ((3)(15))]/8 = [73 - 45]/8 = 18/8 = 2.25 plot profit/hour
Grapes: [270-85 - (24/24(15))]/24 = [185 - 15]/24 = 170/24 = 7.08 plot profit/hr.
and obviously, if you want to figure it out for 23 hours, you can still do that…. just substitute it for the 24 hour time period for the appropriate crops. you will see a significant change in your chart if you use this formula.
though xp might tempt people to plant 8 hour crops because they can make 3 xp/24 hr. plus 3 xp for planting, whereas a 24 hr. crop would get you 2 xp/24 hr. plus 2 xp for planting. whats it worth to you?
@dave:
The accounting is actually accurate. You are not accurately accounting yourself. Everything is first brought down to a common factor (an hour) and then multiplied in a day. Also, the chart is calculated by 23 hours (as it should be).
What I’m going to do is help you find your mistake, let’s assign a variable to each:
a = Sell Value
b = Plow Cost
c = Seed Cost
d = Production Time
e = Hours in Day
My Formula is as follows:
e ( ( a – (b + c ) ) / d )
Your formula is as follows [INCORRECT]:
a – c – ( ( e – b ) / d ) /d
You’re multiplying plow cost [b] by hours in the day [e]. You do not incur the cost every hour of plowing. This is your flaw. Please let me know if you have any other questions.
You tell em Mack. You’re the farmville guru genius dude! You should throw the new Sweet Potato up on your chart. Just to tickle my fancy!!!!!
Hey mack i love the chart thanks. So since ur chart is saying there are 23 hours in a day does that mean I can harvest my daily crops and hour sooner than I have been doing?
I have a question about some of your numbers, they don’t seem to be adding up. Watermelon, for instance. If you’re making 2.21 every hour then you’re making (in a 23 hour period) 50.83. You have it listed as 50.75. I thought you might be rounding, but other numbers (pumpkin @ 66.13) are to the penny.
Also, isn’t the formula for calculating money per hour:
(hours desired) * (price made in any given time) / (the given time the price was made)
Forgive me if I’m wrong, you can ask my wife, it’s not uncommon at all.
Just trying to figure it out for myself.
@Brandon: If you’re currently harvesting “day” crops every 24 hours then the answer is yes, because Farmville has a 23 hr day. I don’t know why they did it that way, but they did. Maybe they’re trying to reinvent time? Haha.
@Matt Burns: You’re getting really picky aren’t you. Actually, the chart is correct. I did not display the full decimal points of every number. If I would have, then Watermelon would have read in the “Per Hour” column as 2.20652173913043 and that multiplied by 23 is 50.74999999999989.
I hope you can now understand why they are what they are.
@Krissy: At your request the chart has been updated.
But a lot of them don’t need a whole decimal point. For example, Wheat is 21.62, not 21.67. What system did you use to round?
Also, with my charts, I’m having trouble with the money per hour formula. Am I right or wrong? I’d love the help figuring out why my numbers aren’t matching up to yours. This is my formula:
actual profit/length of time to make profit=profit per hour
Thanks!
@Matt Burns: My formulas are posted in the body of the post.
Again, I did not display the full decimal points of every number. As foresaid with watermelon, if I had then wheat would have read in the “Per Hour” column as 0.942028985507246 and that multiplied by 23 is 21.6666666666667.
I’m guessing you are rounding before your formula is finished, in which I am not. You should only round once when multiplying, not continuously throughout otherwise your numbers will differ.
In any event, what do .05 coins really mean to anyone?
I believe Farmville reduced the day to 23 hours to consider the planting and plowing time. (assuming you don’t use ACTools and/or Cheat Engine). Assumed planting and plowing time is 1 hour for a maximized plot.
Thanks for the chart, I have one of my own and found this one because I wanted to know about tomatoes and such because I’m only level 19 at the moment.
It’s weird, for some reason all my friends act like idiots and have always thought that wheat was the best. I did the math and got the same anwser as did you so now I can use this to back it up and also I used to always used soybeans until grapes which I have just unlocked so thanks for showing that’s the best xp gainer for them.
The funny thing is me and my friends have been playing for about exactly the same time and play it daily around the same amount of times but I’m almost double their levels because they wouldn’t believe that soy beans were good and wheat was bad.
1 question!
do you get for any seed more than 2 xp?
thanks
Are you sure every day is 23 hours? I mean it’s okay that you can harvest a one-day seed in the 24th hour (after 23 hours), but do 2-day seeds and 3-day seeds take 48-2 and 72-3 hours? Maybe it’s just this last hour thing again, so it would be 47 and 71 hours.
i had made a much more basic using amount earned minus the plowing and seed cost times harvest time. i would compare plants earning rates to either using a gfc. this chart, however, is amazing. it would be amazing to see the trees and animals added to a super chart that also considers the space something takes up. however, this is amazing and will suffice. thank you.
@apcuk: yes the days are 23 hours.
@peter: I have another price with the animal/tree, http://gameolosophy.com/games/online/farmville-animaltree-profitability/
Hello, what do you think of this?
http://bit.ly/2ibq7x
I got profit rate from sale price/cost
Hope it helps
(dunno if it’s updated info, found the data for the missing seeds online)
Wow I thought I was the only obsessed one. I did this chart for my son and I, and my husband thought I was losing it. I just wish I could figure out how to get more farmville dollars. Any ideas?
haha I did it for my sister; I guess we just like to help!
NEW FLOWERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! XD Could you add them to thy sacred chart Mack?? Please and thank you
HOLY FACK! Ghost Chili toooooooo! OMG I’ve never been this excited about something so unimportant!!!!
Could you please add the Ghost chili + the flowers seed profitability?? that would be LOVELY!!
Keep up the good work
!!
Thanks, I was wondering to do something seamed as Im also on accounting area (hehe)…cant let pass the idea of which seed will gived me the best profit
Cheers,
Susan
Alright, the chart has been updated for all seeds. Let me know if you have any other suggestions guys. Also, feel free to visit my blog, http://www.mackaltman.com
This chart is flipping awesome! Thanks for the time put into this and even updating it! Its sad to see people trying to pick at little stupid stuff when you took the time to make it and take the time to update. Thanks again, it saved me som time trying to do math to see what i should plant
Appears to be an accidental Copy Paste in Daffodils, all the data is for Raspberries
Seconding ThatGuy’s comment about the daffodils. According to my calcs, they should come in just above artichokes at about 1.30/hour.
Mack please help explain this to me…
I just came accross your chart and I had already made a chart of my own…but ours are very different. First I will say that I am not as high up as you so I cannot do all of the crops that you have listed.
Our numbers differ because I did not include the cost of plowing…since it cost 15 coins no matter which crop you plant this did not seem necessary to me.
I simply did my calculations as follows…
(sell value) – (seed cost) / (production time)
For example…
Strawberries = 35 – 10 = 25 / 4 = 6.2 coins per hour
So on my chart, rasberries are the most profitable per hour. This makes sense to me (being in the marketing field) because generally the faster crops are the most profitable. Therefore, the more often you have to access Facebook and FV to harvest you crops, therefore, the more often you are exposed to their advertisements.
But you are the expert here so please explain to me why factoring in the plowing cost is necessary. Thanks
Plowing cost is key because for some crops you have to plow more often and therefore pay more for plowing. So with raspberries you have to pay 35 coins every hour to plow and plant whereas with something that takes say a day to harvest, like grapes, you only have to plow once a day rather than the ~12 times a day for raspberries.
Basically plowing cost does change with each crop how often you have to do it changes.
plowing cost doesnt vary per crop, but the production time per crop does. And therefore, the yield per hour for each crop is different.
so the formula becomes:
(seed value) – ( (seed costs) + (plowing costs) ) / (production time)
since the plowing costs are the same for all crops:
(seed value) – ( (seed costs) + 15 ) / (production time)
profit on Strawberries = 35 – (10+15) / 4 = 2,5.
I think your line for daffodils is copied from the rasberries line. Like the chart and calculations…Nice Job
<3 Craig Horner
Uhm..little correction:
the DAFFODILS do not need 2 HOURS, they need 2 DAYS to grow…and the sell price is 135 coins
but thank you so much for that list, everything else seems to be alright
@Brooke: The problem probably lies with you not calculating the plow costs into the formula. The thing is with some (the ones that are done in 2 hours) will need multiple plowings, where the ones that are only once a day will only need one plow costs. So the profit will dramatically change if plow cost is not calculated.
@Iris: My apologies, I have updated the content. I think it was a typo as I copied and pasted incorrectly.
I’m sorry, Mack but your math is not totally correct. Just take tomatoes into account:
they grow 8h/day so that’s 3 times a day
cost you 3×15 + 3×100 = 345
get you 3×173 = 519
total profit a day is 519 – 345 = 174
Not 166.75 even by your formulae, look:
PP/Hour = (173 – (15 + 100)) / 8 = 7.25 – you got this one right, but:
PP/Day = 7.25 * 24 = 174
Any mistake here?
Your 166.75 value is: 174 / 24 * 23
I understand that grapes, for example, only take 23 hours (had no idea about that farmville 23-hour-day), but a (real) day is 24 hours in any place and 8 hours times 3 is a day, is it not?
If you want to calculate how much a 24 hour period (a day) gets you, for those that grow in 23 hours, just factor that, because ultimately if you kept growing them non stop, you’d win a (real) day in 24 days.
As for those that are longer than a day, I have no idea what “time discount” they have but the logic is still the same, a day is a 24 hour (real life) period and that’s what the math should be taking into account.
Cheers.
The guy says he’s doing:
Plot Profit/Day = Plot Profit/Hour * 24
But he’s really doing * 23, which is stupid and non of these nimwits has spotted it.
3 new ones:
Cranberries
Pattypan Squash
Acorn Squash
Stew: you are right – “profit per day” is given for 23-hour days, but, still, this doesn’t affect seed profitability order. May be given in 23-day, 24-day, month etc.
peas!!!! O.o
If your not counting in plow costs in your profit/hour you are planting inefficiently and are not gaining as much money as you could be. read here to find out why
i’m here because i just can not fathom how many people are confused about the way this chart is made, and how he came to his profit/hr. lets compare the 2 methods with raspberries and broccoli. broccoli takes 2 days and raspberries take 2 hours. the profit on one field of broccoli is 273 after 2 days, not counting plowing. so lets plant raspberries for 2 days. doing this almost flawlessly and checking in every 2 hours we would harvest 23 times, which would give us a profit of 598, not counting plowing. raspberries seem to be the more profitable eh? wrong, because we did not count the total cost, and even if we did sow our fields every 2 hours we would be making less money than we could if we simply planted broccoli once. Here’s why—> broccoli profits 273, 273- 15 for the plow is 258. raspberries profit 598- the 23 plows. 598-345=253. its simple we are putting in total cost. total cost= the cost of the seed+ the cost of the plow.
This would be like painting a house and every time you repainted you would have to coat a new room in primer before you repainted, but when considering whether or not you have the money to paint you just include the price of the regular paint and not count the primer. Its retarded. profit/hr in this game is purely
(sell for price-plow cost-seed cost)/time to ripen
ONION has the most profit out there .
180 xp per day.
I got couple notices
a) you didnt count that plowing, seeding and harvesting is taking time. they doesnt work like a snap in 1 mill second at least you got max farm
b) can you count onions profitability again because i got different information
Something everyone forgets about. A plot of crops takes up the same space as 16 trees or animals except cows, horses and elephants (which are larger and only fit 4 per plot). So a plot of trees above Fig and all animals but horses,cows (even in the milking shed) and free-range chickens (chicken coop gets 7.45/hour with normal chickens) make better money than any crop in the game.
Lime trees make 10.43 per hour.
Olive trees make 19.5 per hour.
Swans and turkeys make 27.4 per hour.
The Acai and Maple trees make over 52 per hour. That is the same as almost 7 plots of peas from just one tree taking up 1/16 of the peas plots. The peas take up 110x more space than a Maple tree to bring in the same cash and bring in less experience points.
How can trees or animals bring in MORE experience than crops’ use the income to plow -> plant soybean -> destroy method of experience plow(15coin+1exp)+soybean(15coin+2exp) -> 3 experience /30 coins = 1 experience per 10 coins. So you get 27/10 coins per experience point = 2.7 experience per hour from a plot of swans. You could also buy bales of hay then sell them off for 95/5= 19 coins per experience point. Which is 1.42 experience per hour.
Off course you have to pay off your initial investment in the bought items. All bought trees or animals take 10 to 12 weeks till pure profit. The free gift animals/trees are profit from the first harvest.
Check the math here: http://steelowl.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/farmville-tree-and-animal-profit-values/
Just remember 16 trees per square.
If you have 100k coins sitting around and happy with most your farm then you can start spending the extra cash for experience like described above. So blackberries still win but if all their money goes to buying experience they give you 0.93 experience per hour. Still not as good as lime trees or better but harvesting 16 trees per plot can get annoying. Too bad it’s not like Farm Town where you hire other people wiling to harvest the groves.
Hey hey! Why are you falling behind Mack? Is there something in your life more important than FARMVILLE?! Unpossible… lol! when you get a chance it would be awesome if you put the two new types of squash and cranberries up as well as the new sweet corn. Also, not to be a nag like everyone else, but I do believe your onion calculation is slightly off. Looks like you’ve got the wrong number in there for sell…. Oh well lol
And I would also just like to say that sweet corn is SWEEEET! It has catapulted me to level 38…. and I AM FARMVILLE GOD!
Hahahaahaha.
Alright, my apologies for not posting in a while. I’ve had a lot happening with life in general, excluding the busy week I’ve had with Thanksgiving this week. I wanted to address a few of the comments, so here goes.
@Daniel: You say that tomatoes would complete their cycle three times a day; however, you’re incorrect. There are only 23 hours in a Farmville day, so they would only complete 2.875 cycles. You go further stating you know how long the Farmville day is, but still base your examples off of a human day, which would not cause anything to grow any faster.
@Stew: You are showing my formula for the Profit per Day which is correct, not wrong as stated. The chart associates everything to the 23 hour day and brings it to a common unit which is Profit Per Hour, it then multiplies that by the real hours in a day to show you how much is possible in a full “human” day. Hopefully you now understand and know why you’re the first to complain about it.
@Daniel: Acorn and Pattypan Squash were already added, but I did add the Cranberries.
@Super Farmville: Peas are on the list, look at the top.
@James: I’m not sure if you’re for or against the chart. It seems as if you’re trying to help the clueless understand it?
@mmuli: Are you confused? You state that the onion is the most profitable, which it’s not. And then go to state that it’s 180xp a day, which has nothing to do with profit.
@Kakku: There is no way I can calculate how slow or fast someone clicks. How fast you click will be different than I. Since I know a trick to farming faster as well, you may til/harvest slower than I as well. Also, onion is correct, I just double checked.
@stevels: Animals/Trees are not included in this post. You can view those here: http://gameolosophy.com/games/online/farmville-animaltree-profitability/ And I fixed the error.
Please let me know if there are any other concerns that were unaddressed.
You\’ve got two rows of cranberries
.
.
Good chart btw, I\’ve been using it like forever, it\’s the best on the internet. Keep up the good work, and you could add the new items
@Kakku: There is no way I can calculate how slow or fast someone clicks. How fast you click will be different than I. Since I know a trick to farming faster as well, you may til/harvest slower than I as well. Also, onion is correct, I just double checked.
My answer to that is you dont have to know how fast someone can click but that how fast your person in farmville acts. Like harvest it takes 1,5 second? plow 1 second? on so on. That time sould be multiplication on how many plots you have so you get time how fast you are done. Then count coins per hour and day.
Could you add the poinsettias to the list as well? Thank you for this awesome list, will come in handy!
@Nejc: I removed the extra row of cranberries. So I like cranberries! Gosh!
@Kakku: Actually the time one harvests/seeds is different. If you don’t use the gate trick then you will have to walk to each plot, which would mean that you have to click directly next to each plot otherwise the time would again increase if you put space between your plots. I’m not sure one would be as anal about seconds in the first place.
Raspberries make 13.00 per hour per square where as grapes make about 7.00… even with tractors and more squares factored in, how are Raspberries lower than grapes?
Hi Mack, love it. No complaints here. Only one question:
Can we have access to an Excel spreadsheet with this information already in it? The picture of the profitability sheet is great and I’ve been using it for several months). If we had an Excel spreadsheet, or even a tab-delimited format, we could each do an Excel spreadsheet of our own and update it on our own until you have a chance to update the “official on-the-site” copy. That way we can add newer stuff (like poinsetta) without pestering you, until you release the most updated version.
Or with the Excel spreadsheet, anyone with a little know-how could post the latest updates or new seeds in a format that others could easily add it to their own Excel spreadsheets.
Does that make any sense? To you or anyone else? Thanks.
ahm…
thanks for your table!
could you add levels to it? to the left of the table!
it would help me alot!
thanks once again and merry xmas!
what is the super berry and jhow do i get them
Hi Mack! Thanks for the chart! It’s very informative…I was amazed with the thread of this discussion – battle of formulas! Haha I really hate numbers so this page is really a big help. Happy New Year everyone!
1 Day in farmville is = to 23 hrs not 24.
new morning glory…
could you add please?
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Great information!
There is a very extensive new crop profits chart available for download at http://www.farmville-millionare.com/free-crop-profits-chart
As well as all crop mastery numbers, this spreadsheeet also has loads of other information including profit per day/per hour, xp points per day/per hour, plus charts and graphs displaying exact profit amounts. It really is the one and only Farmville profits guide
This information is great! I’ve been wondering about these exact details. Thank you so much.
Here is my take, the chart is awesome…best example and understanding I have seen on the net! For those of you that are trying to “justify” that someone has made a mistake, go make your own chart…jeez, some people are so picky! Thanks for a great job!