Know Your Numbers: A Simple, Practical Calculator for Farriers to Price Work

For years, the industry has told farriers, “Know your cost of doing business.” That advice is right—but not exactly actionable. What goes where? How do you treat tools? How do you spread insurance, truck costs, and admin time across each horse? Without a concrete framework, most people default to “what everyone else charges,” and hope it works out.

This article introduces a clear, step-by-step Farrier Price Calculator that breaks your operation into sensible chunks, then turns those numbers into recommended prices per horse for shoeing and trimming. It’s designed for real-world use: quick to set up, flexible to maintain, and easy to adjust as your books and costs change.

Note: All Excel sheets have been pre-filled with sample values. Make sure to change them to match your business and your goals.

Click below to download the calculator:

Farrier_Business_Cost_Calculator_v2.xlsx

Download XLSX • 21KB

What the calculator does (in plain English)

• Captures every cost you carry—from insurance and subscriptions to tools and travel.

• Separates long-/short-term assets (tools, truck, rig) and turns them into annual depreciation so their cost is fairly spread across the year.

• Tracks per-job consumables (shoes, nails, pads, pour-ins, rasps, hoof sealant).

• Accounts for vehicle costs—both the fixed annual pieces (insurance, registration, loan/lease) and the variable cost per appointment (fuel, wear).

• Reflects your service volume by letting you input how many horses in your books are shoeings vs. trims and how many cycles/year you do for each.

• Produces a recommended price for shoeing and trimming that covers labor, overhead, card fees, and your chosen profit margin.

  
  

Before you start: what to have handy

• Annual premiums: business, health, disability insurance

• Retirement contribution target (what you want to set aside each year)

• Accounting/tax costs and any subscriptions (QuickBooks/CRM)

• Phone/internet and marketing/website spend

• CE/clinics/competition budget

• Permits/dues and any shop/storage rent

• Vehicle costs: fuel price, MPG, miles/appointment (round trip), per-mile maintenance; plus insurance, registration, loan/lease

• Tool purchases (forge, anvil, aprons, hand tools, rig/truck, etc.) with rough useful lives

• Consumable prices (shoes, nails, pads, pour-ins, sealant, rasps)

• Your work rhythm: hours per shoeing/trim, travel time per appointment, target wage, card fee %, and desired profit margin

• Horses in your books: how many are shoeings vs. trims; typical cycles per year for each group

Don’t have exact numbers? Use reasonable estimates today; refine later. The tool is built to be updated.

How to use the chart: step-by-step

1) Overhead (annual, fixed)

Enter your yearly costs that keep the business running whether you see one horse or 600:

• Business/health/disability insurance

• Retirement savings

• Accounting/tax

• Subscriptions (QB/CRM/apps)

• Phone/internet

• Marketing/website

• CE/clinics/competition

• Permits & dues

• Shop/storage

Result: The sheet auto-totals your Overhead Subtotal, which feeds pricing automatically.

2) Assets (depreciated)

List your long- and short-term tools and equipment (e.g., forge, anvil, anvil stand, aprons/chaps, calipers, fire tongs, hoof stand, nippers, clinchers, grinder, rig/truck, welder, knives, pritchel, forepunch, tool box, vise, water bucket, fire extinguisher, welding flux, etc.).

• Enter purchase cost, useful life (years), and salvage value (what it’s worth at the end).

• The chart calculates annual depreciation for each item and totals it.

Result: Total yearly depreciation is added to overhead—so tools “show up” fairly in your pricing.

Rule of thumb: If it lasts multiple years, it belongs here. If you consume it per job (e.g., shoes, nails, pour-ins), it goes to Consumables.

3) Consumables (per job)

Capture per-horse supplies:

• Shoes, nails, pads, pour-ins, hoof sealants, rasps (amortized), hoof stand wear (amortized)

• Set Unit cost and typical Units per Shoeing vs. Units per Trim.

Result: The sheet totals COGS per Shoeing and COGS per Trim and feeds them to pricing.

Tip: If you sometimes do pads or pour-ins, enter the cost and set “Units per Trim” to 0. For a shoeing that doesn’t need them, change the units for that estimate or keep your units at an average rate across your book.

4) Vehicle & Travel

This separates fixed annual vehicle costs from per-appointment variables:

• Inputs: fuel price, MPG, miles/appointment (round trip), and per-mile maintenance (tires, brakes, oil, etc.)

• Fixed annuals: vehicle insurance, registration/taxes, loan/lease

• The sheet calculates variable cost per appointment and annual fixed vehicle total.

Result: Your travel truly shows up in per-horse pricing.

Pro move: If you cluster barns geographically, lower your “miles/appointment” to see how route density improves margin.

5) Assumptions (work, fees, time)

Set the business rules you want your pricing to follow:

• Owner wage ($/hr) and payroll/self-employment burden %

• Payment processing fee % (card costs)

• Profit margin % (what you’re aiming to keep after costs)

• Hours per shoeing, hours per trim, and travel time per appointment

Result: The calculator uses these values to build your labor and overhead allocation per job.

6) Books & Mix (your work volume)

Tell the calculator how your book is structured:

• How many horses are your books – shod or trimmed

• Shoeing cycles/year per horse and Trim cycles/year per horse

Result: The sheet derives your annual service volume (shoeings + trims), labor hours, travel hours, and total billable hours. This is used to compute overhead per billable hour—a key driver of accurate pricing.

Changing the mix (e.g., more trims, fewer shoeings) will change overhead allocation and, therefore, recommended prices. That’s intentional.

7) Pricing (your per-horse rates)

The calculator builds cost per service and solves for a sustainable customer price.

For Shoeing:

• Labor cost = (hours per shoeing × wage) × (1 + burden %)

• Allocated overhead = hours per shoeing × overhead per billable hour

• Travel time cost = travel time × wage × (1 + burden %)

• Vehicle variable = from Vehicle sheet

• Consumables = from Consumables sheet

• Base cost = all of the above

• Recommended price adjusts base cost for card fees and profit margin so you keep the margin after fees.

• See cells: Exact E14, rounded E15.

For a Trim: Same structure with trim-specific time and consumables.

• See cells: Exact E29, rounded E30.

Why the algebra matters: If you simply “add 3% card fee and 15% margin,” the fee comes off the top and you won’t actually land at 15%. The calculator solves it correctly so your margin is what you intended.

A 15-minute setup you can do today

1. Overhead: Drop in your known annual costs (insurance, subscriptions, etc.). Leave tricky items blank for now.

2. Assets: Add your big tools and truck with rough lifespans (you can refine later).

3. Consumables: Enter current prices for shoes, nails, rasps, pads, pour-ins.

4. Vehicle: Put in fuel price, MPG, and your typical miles/appointment.

5. Assumptions: Set your wage, fees, margin, and realistic time per service.

6. Books & Mix: Enter horses in books for shoeings vs. trims and your usual cycles/year (e.g., 6 cycles/year ≈ every 8–9 weeks).

7. Pricing: Read E15 (Shoeing) and E30 (Trim). Sense-check, then adjust assumptions if needed.

   
   

Common pitfalls (and how to avoid them)

• Underestimating time. Be honest about setup, catching, client chat, and post-work cleanup. If 1.25 hours per shoeing is tight, make it 1.5 and see the impact.

• Ignoring travel. High miles/appointment will eat margin. Model your actual routes, then plan barn days to bring miles down.

• Forgetting future you. Retirement, CE, replacement tools—if they’re not in the model, they won’t be in your price.

• Treating tools as free once bought. Depreciation spreads their cost so you’re not subsidizing your customers.

• Card fees not truly covered. Let the algebra do its job so the fee doesn’t erode your margin.

  
  

Make it yours: Farrier Price Calculator

• Different barns, different realities. Create scenario copies: “Dense Route,” “Long Haul,” “Competition Season.” Adjust miles/appointment and consumables to compare.

• Front-only or specialty sets? Duplicate the Consumables lines and create a second column block, or use a second copy of the workbook, to model specialty packages.

• Price reviews. Revisit quarterly for fuel, consumables, or book mix changes; revisit wage and margin at least annually.

  
  

The payoff

When you know your numbers, you price with confidence:

• Your rates cover every cost, including your time and future tools.

• You can explain your pricing to clients without hesitation.

• You can say yes to the right work—and no to the wrong work—because you can see the impact on profitability.

The industry’s advice is sound. This chart finally gives you the map. Fill it out once, refine as you go, and let it keep your business both sustainable and profitable—one hoof at a time.