What is the True Cost of Compost (or manure) in 2025?

I am updating this post to 2025 because I get regular questions about both the cost of composts and quality of composts (or manure) in my visits with organic producers and conventional producers or both. There seems to be this mystery about compost including, what is actually in the compost and how much it is worth? Certainly, there is some mystery since composts do have organic matter and as a result also contain microbes that generally are not measured by the labs. These two ingredients add a lot of value to a compost but in general we have trouble quantifying or putting a $$ value on their presence in the compost.

Almost any company that makes and/or sells a compost product will have an analysis for you to know what is in their product. Typically, they should be taking samples on a regular basis or at least as the supply source changes. Compost is generally made from manure, and manure is made from feed that livestock eat. As a livestock producer changes what their animals eat this can drastically influence what nutrients end up in the manure and ultimately the compost.

The chart below shows some comparisons between different manures or composts with prices. These prices were collected on January 3, 2025, and so your current prices may be different. The chicken manure can be seen as a bargain compared to the pellets, but the pellets have some advantages in ease of application and uniformity of product.

What we really want is an analysis based on dry matter not with water added so we can compare to commercial fertilizer costs. This gives us a compost value or even a way to compare one compost to another.

I did this analysis above on three different companies selling different products. One was a manure product that had been composted to remove some water but not all, and the other two were pelleted compost products which is very common now. To do the calculations I first have to get to a 100% dry matter (DM) basis, so I multiply the ton or 2,000 lbs. times the %DM. In the first example there is 3.5% nitrogen X 1,400 lbs. of DM = 49 lbs. of nitrogen. Nitrogen is also in a phosphorus source (18-46-0) and in the sulphur source (21-0-0-24) so I have to subtract that out to get a value for the nitrogen in the chicken manure based on nutrients I can buy from commercial fertilizer. I do this for all the manure nutrients to establish a value for nutrients.

This picture of my spreadsheet above shows an analysis of the cost of ingredients based solely on Nitrogen, Phosphorus from P2O5, Potassium from K2O and Sulphur from Ammonium Sulphate. You can see the current cost of those nutrients is based on commercial fertilizer prices so that we get a value to compare composts to each other. In the top example, the $88 chicken manure compost seems to be a bargain even though the nutrients are slightly less than the other examples. The water (%moisture) lowers the actual value down significantly to $58.72 per ton. This example is meant to show that you could pay about $60 per ton for the top example and feel good that you didn’t pay more than the current price of conventional fertilizer. And, in the second example when you pay $230 delivered you are getting $127 in nutrients based on commercial fertilizer, and you get lots of micronutrients, organic matter and microbes and the third example is slightly better. The point is to do a little comparison shopping before you just look at price per ton, there are a lot of things in the ton you may have never thought about before! Lastly, the benefits of the carbon in compost, which is the food source for microbes add tremendous value. In one sample I was sent it was 23% carbon, and you will not get that from commercial fertilizer!

Other Resources (just click a link!)

• Soil Testing, soil results, soil test labs
• Organic Fertilizer – what is it, what are the rules, and where do you buy it?
• Organic Materials/Products Lists
• Organic Weed Control
• Best Cover Crops for Weed Control and Fertility
• Allelopathy – What is it, what has it, and how do we use it?
• Organic Seed May Soon Be Required