I used to drive myself crazy trying to figure out how to calculate prices per thousand and then convert them to per piece. It was so tedious and after a while, just annoying. So I designed a quick little spreadsheet in Excel that would calculate the answer for me and I must use it at least a dozen times a day, if not more.
Now that I have a good clientele, they always ask me to change prices for them, so I decided to do two things. Put an interactive calculator on our website so they can do it themselves AND write an article to help others in the same boat.
So let’s give an example and then how to convert it.
You need a truckload of 2x4x8′. You phone and get quotes on the material. The best quote is $250/M for 20 packs (294 pieces per pack). What is that per piece? So how much EXACTLY is that for the whole load?
Here is the formula how it is calculated per piece.
Step 1 – Get the board feet per piece. (See my other article – “Board Feet? How to Calculate”)
Thickness X Width X Length / 144 (Make sure to change the 8 feet to 96 inches (8×12))
2 X 4 X 96 / 144 = 5.33333
Step 2 – Take the price per thousand (or per M) and divide it by 1000.
250 / 1000 = 0.25
Step 3 – Multiply the board feet from Step 1 by the answer from Step 2.
5.33333 X 0.25 = 1.33333
Your answer is $1.33 per piece (rounded down, of course).
Okay, are you still with me? Okay! Now, how much is the total load of the truck? Well, there are two ways to do this. You can take the long way or the short cut (which is more precise). I will explain both.
Long Road – Now take 20 packs and multiply them by 294 pieces which will give you 5880 pieces. Now take $1.33 and multiply 5880 and you have your answer of $7820.40
PRAYED
Shortcut: In step one, simply include the number of packs and pieces in your calculation.
2 x 4 x 96 x20 x294 / 144 = 31,360 and you multiply it by step 2 (0.25). You have your answer of $7840.00
NOW, will you notice that there is almost a $20 difference? That’s because in the first calculation we rounded all those decimals to just two. That adds up to over 5880 boards (for $19.60 to be exact!) so you’ll definitely want to use the shortcut now that you know how.
So one last question. Why do lumber companies trade for a thousand? Simply because of the volume AND the multiple sizes. It is much easier to quote 2x4x8, 2x4x10, 2x4x12, 2x4x16 at $250/M than having to calculate all the different sizes and then add them or quote each size individually (there can be ten different sizes on the truck!). Furthermore, if the truck is heavy and a package has to be removed, the lumber company would have to quote again when it was already painful to do so the first time.
There you go. Hopefully this now gives you a clear understanding of how to calculate and convert per thousand to per piece. Oh one last thing, if you are really stuck and still can’t get the calculations just visit our website and there you can find a free calculator program.