Work is person-hours.
Dry pounds ÷ pounds per person-hour gives the total labor requirement. Keep the material and finish standard consistent when measuring the rate.
50 lb ÷ 0.12 lb/person-hour = 416.7 person-hoursHarvest operations / The planning desk
Cannabis Trimming Labor & Cost Calculator
Plan the work.
Put a number on the time.
Turn dry weight and your team’s measured pace into a labor budget. Then work backward from a finish target to the crew you would need.
Dry weight in poundsEditable example inputsUSD · 8-hour modeled days
01 / Workload & budget
What will this batch take?
Live estimateUse dry material ready for the trim standard you are estimating. The sample productivity and wage are starting values, not industry benchmarks.
01
Your batch inputs
Productivity is pounds per person-hour. Use an observed rate for comparable material, finish quality and working time.
Modeled wages —
Added overhead —
—
02 / Work backward from a finish target
Have a deadline?
This planning target allocates eight modeled trimming hours to each person per day. Allow separately for time that is not represented in your productivity rate.
8-hour days
Fractions of a day are allowed.
Whole-number crew needed—people at your entered productivity
With that crew—modeled crew-days to finish
—
Current crew—
Target crew—
What if I pay the entire crew for the full target window?
—
—
This uses the rounded target crew × target days × 8 hours × hourly wage × overhead multiplier. It covers that full window, including capacity left after the modeled trimming is finished.
Keep the plan
A brief you can take with you.
Includes inputs, the current estimate, target crew and assumptions.
03 / Read the model
The work, the clock, the cost.
The crew changes the clock.
Person-hours ÷ people gives elapsed crew hours. Divide by eight for the modeled crew-days. Each person is assumed to maintain the same entered productivity.
416.7 person-hours ÷ 6 people = 69.4 elapsed hoursRate turns work into cost.
Person-hours × wage × (1 + overhead ÷ 100) gives modeled labor cost. Divide by dry pounds for cost per pound.
416.7 × $20 × 1.18 ≈ $9,833.33Adding people shortens the modeled job.
At an unchanged individual rate and hourly cost, the total person-hours and productive labor cost stay the same. Actual staffing, coordination, setup, breaks and paid idle time can change the result. The full-window budget above helps distinguish productive work from paying a complete crew window.
Make the input more useful
Measure a representative batch.
- Define the finish.Use the same dryness, material type and finished-product standard.
- Track the whole team’s hours.Sum person-hours for the work represented in your measurement.
- Divide pounds by person-hours.Enter that rate, then test a slower assumption for a difficult batch.
A planning estimate based on your inputs. The eight-hour day is a model convention, not a shift recommendation. Explore all calculators →
FAQ
Questions about this calculator
What is a good trimming rate?
There is no single universal rate. Use time-study data from your own team and product standard.
Why calculate person-hours separately from crew time?
Person-hours determine labor cost. Crew size determines how long the calendar job takes.
Can this compare contractors with employees?
Yes. Convert each option to an effective cost per person-hour or cost per pound and compare on the same finished-product standard.