Is Your Smart Indoor Garden Worth It? Real Yield, Electricity, and Cost‑Per‑Salad Calculator for Gardyn, AeroGarden & Click and Grow (2026)
Common mistakes: why most people have no idea what their Gardyn or AeroGarden really costs
"Smart" indoor gardens promise endless greens with almost no work. Apps, cameras, and automated lighting make it feel like the numbers are handled for you.
The catch: most owners never track the two things that actually decide if a Gardyn, AeroGarden, Click and Grow, or similar system is worth it in 2026:
- How many grams they actually harvest every month
- How many dollars they burn on power, pods, nutrients, and replacements to get that harvest
So they end up in one of two camps:
- "This thing is amazing" without any math to back it up
- "It’s too expensive" based only on the upfront price tag
If you want to make a serious keep / upgrade / sell decision on a Gardyn Studio 2, Gardyn Home, AeroGarden Farm, Click and Grow Smart Garden, or any other smart system, you need hard numbers: grams, kilowatt-hours, and cost per serving.
This article gives you that framework.
We’re not talking theory here. Hydroponics has been studied and used commercially for decades, with high yields per square meter when nutrients, pH, and lighting are dialed in, as outlined in the hydroponics overview on Wikipedia and basic guides from Epic Gardening and The Spruce. Your smart garden is a compact, automated version of the same idea. That means you can measure it the same way a commercial grower would.
Before we build the calculator, let’s look at the most common ROI mistakes smart garden owners make.
Why these mistakes happen (and how the tech UI encourages them)
Mistake 1: Treating the garden like décor instead of a food appliance
Smart towers and countertop systems look great. Gardyn’s Studio line, for example, is literally marketed as indoor furniture and design, as highlighted in The Verge’s Gardyn Studio 2 review. That aesthetic focus has a side effect: people run them half-empty and harvest sporadically.
If only 30 to 50% of your sites are planted most of the time, your cost per 100 g of greens quietly doubles. The system’s power draw and base costs do not care that you left 12 pods empty.
Mistake 2: Ignoring electricity completely
Many owners don’t know whether their Gardyn or AeroGarden pulls 20 W or 120 W, or what that means. Even manufacturer blogs can be vague; AeroGarden’s own electricity-use page has been intermittently unavailable or under maintenance in recent years, so growers are left guessing.
In reality, LEDs and pumps are easy to cost out:
- A mid-size AeroGarden with around 45 W of LED lighting running 16 hours a day, plus a small pump and controller, typically draws about 0.7–0.8 kWh per day. That is about 23 kWh per month, or roughly $3.50 at $0.15/kWh.
- A larger vertical system like a Gardyn Home or Studio with higher light output will land higher, but the math is still the same: watts × hours × your local rate.
Ignore this and your cost per salad looks better than it really is. Track it and you can adjust light schedules intelligently instead of guessing.
Mistake 3: Trusting pods and presets to guarantee yield
Pre-measured seed pods and app recipes are convenient, but they do not guarantee yield. The underlying hydroponics still follow the same rules of nutrient concentration (EC), pH, and light that you see in any deep water culture or nutrient film system, as covered in this Epic Gardening hydroponics basics guide. If EC is off or pH drifts and you never check it, plants will lag or stall even while the system looks "on" in the app.
That wasted growth shows up as lower grams harvested per month and worse ROI, not as a flashing warning light.
Mistake 4: Not separating hardware cost from operating cost
Many people mentally lump the entire purchase into a vague "expensive" bucket and stop there. In practice, you should separate:
- Hardware: the one-time cost of the Gardyn, AeroGarden, or Click and Grow unit, amortized over its life.
- Operating: pods or seeds, nutrients, electricity, and occasional parts like pumps or air stones.
That split is how commercial growers treat hydroponic infrastructure, and it is the only way to know whether your cost per 100 g is competitive with the grocery store.
How to fix it: a simple ROI measurement system for Gardyn, AeroGarden & Click and Grow
Now we get into the practical part. You do not need lab equipment or a commercial greenhouse workflow. You just need a cheap kitchen scale, a smart plug, and a simple spreadsheet.
Step 1: Log your real harvest in grams
Your smart garden app might show "days since planting" or a generic timeline. Ignore that for ROI. What matters is grams harvested.
Set this up:
- Tool: A digital kitchen scale, ideally 1 g resolution.
- Habit: Every time you harvest anything from the system, weigh it before washing.
Use a basic log:
- Date
- System (Gardyn Studio, AeroGarden Bounty, Click and Grow 25, etc.)
- Crop (butterhead, basil, cilantro, etc.)
- Harvest weight (g)
At the end of the month, sum the grams by system. That total is your real yield for ROI calculations.
For consumer towers, realistic monthly yields if you keep most sites planted and conditions decent are:
- 30-site tower (Gardyn Home class): 1,000–3,000 g per month of edible greens and herbs.
- 16-site tower (Gardyn Studio class): 500–1,600 g per month.
- 9–12 pod countertop garden: 300–900 g per month.
These ranges line up with what hydroponic systems routinely achieve under good management, as seen in general hydroponics literature and practice summarized on Wikipedia.
Step 2: Measure electricity with a smart plug
Stop guessing about power. Plug your Gardyn, AeroGarden, or Click and Grow base into a smart plug that measures accumulated energy use (kWh).
Then:
- Reset the smart plug on day 1 of a new grow cycle.
- Record total kWh at harvest or at the end of each month.
Power cost:
- Electricity cost for the period = kWh × your local price per kWh.
Example:
- Smart plug shows 32 kWh over a 6-week leafy green cycle on a mid-size AeroGarden.
- Your rate is $0.15/kWh.
- Electricity cost per harvest = 32 × 0.15 = $4.80.
Do the same for your Gardyn or Click and Grow. Bigger light bars or longer photoperiods will show up in higher kWh. No guessing, no marketing assumptions.
Step 3: Track consumables and replacements
Next, tally everything you buy that ends up in or on that system:
- Seed pods / seed baskets / grow sponges
- Bottled nutrients (Gardyn’s nutrient packs, AeroGarden liquid nutrients, or your own salts)
- Replacement parts (pumps, air stones, filters, extra sprayers, etc.)
Set a monthly estimate even if you buy in bulk. For example:
- $12 for pods and seeds
- $5 for nutrients
- $3 amortized per month for a replacement pump you expect every two years
Total = $20 per month in consumables and parts for that system.
Step 4: Include membership and subscription costs
Some smart garden brands decouple hardware and membership. Gardyn clearly lists separate hardware kits (Home, Studio) and a Gardyn Membership on its site. If membership unlocks better pricing on plants, app features, or replacement parts and you’re paying it largely to run the garden, then it belongs in your ROI math.
For each system, log:
- Membership fees that are tied to that hardware (or the portion you assign to it if you have multiple devices).
Step 5: Put it into a simple ROI spreadsheet
Here is a straightforward model you can mirror in Google Sheets or Excel.
Inputs per system:
- Hardware cost (H)
- Expected hardware life in months (L), e.g. 60 months for 5 years
- Monthly yield in grams (Y)
- Monthly electricity cost (E)
- Monthly consumables/parts cost (N)
- Monthly membership cost (M)
- Equivalent grocery price per kg (P)
Core formulas:
- Hardware per month: H_month = H / L
- Yield in kg: Y_kg = Y / 1000
- Value of produce per month: Value = Y_kg × P
- Operating cost per month: OpCost = E + N + M
- Total cost per month: TotalCost = OpCost + H_month
- Net savings per month vs grocery: Net = Value − TotalCost
- Payback period (months): Payback = H / max(Net, tiny positive number) (only valid when Net is positive)
What to watch long-term: cost per 100 g, cost per salad, and how to improve ROI
Once you have a few months of data, you can do more than eyeball whether "it feels worth it." You can benchmark real numbers and then tune your smart garden like a serious hydroponic system.
Metric 1: Cost per 100 g
This is the most honest apples-to-apples metric across systems and crops.
Use:
- Cost per 100 g (operating only) = 100 × OpCost / Y
- Cost per 100 g (with hardware) = 100 × TotalCost / Y
Example for a fully loaded Gardyn-style tower:
- Y = 2,000 g/month
- H = $900, L = 60 months → H_month = $15
- E = $5, N = $15, M = $10 → OpCost = $30, TotalCost = $45
Then:
- Cost per 100 g (op only) = 100 × 30 / 2000 = $1.50
- Cost per 100 g (with hardware) = 100 × 45 / 2000 = $2.25
Compare that to your local price per 100 g of equivalent produce (especially organic mixes and fresh herbs). If your grocery store effectively charges $3–$6 per 100 g for specialty greens and herbs, this is a win.
Metric 2: Cost per salad or serving
Most people think in servings, not grams, so translate the same data into a per-salad number.
Define a typical serving of leafy greens + herbs as 90 g:
- Servings per month = Y / 90
- Operating cost per serving = OpCost / (Y / 90)
- True cost per serving (with hardware) = TotalCost / (Y / 90)
Using the example above (Y = 2,000 g, OpCost = $30, TotalCost = $45):
- Servings ≈ 2,000 / 90 ≈ 22
- Op cost per serving ≈ 30 / 22 ≈ $1.36
- True cost per serving ≈ 45 / 22 ≈ $2.05
Now compare that to your local ready-to-eat salad or herb bunch price.
Metric 3: Utilization rate
You can have the prettiest Gardyn Studio 2 in the world and still lose money if you treat it like a lamp.
Track:
- Utilization rate = average number of active plant sites / total sites.
If you have 30 sites and only 12 have productive plants most of the time, your utilization is 40%. That converts directly into wasted hardware, electricity, and membership cost.
Metric 4: Yield per site per month
Yield per site shows whether your tuning is working and lets you compare smart gardens to DIY DWC or NFT rigs.
Formula:
- Yield per site per month = Y / active sites.
If your 30-site tower produces 2,400 g/month with 26 active sites, yield per site is about 92 g/month. Push that to 120–150 g/site/month with better cultivars and management, and your cost per serving drops fast.
Actionable ways to improve ROI without buying anything new
1. Dial your photoperiod to hit target DLI, not "max brightness"
Plants care about total light delivered per day (DLI, or daily light integral), not whether the LEDs are blazing 18 hours non-stop. Many smart gardens default to generous photoperiods so no one under-lights their basil.
Instead of blindly accepting presets, do this:
- If your system lets you adjust hours, start around 14–16 hours for leafy greens and herbs.
- Watch plant response for two weeks. If leaves are compact, thick, and deep green, you are probably close to optimal.
- If you have a PAR meter or even a basic lux meter, you can approximate DLI and trim back an hour or two if the canopy is clearly oversupplied.
Each hour you shave off an already high-light schedule reduces kWh without sacrificing yield, improving cost per 100 g. Many home LED setups are over-lit relative to what leafy greens actually require to reach full photosynthetic saturation indoors, which wastes power.
2. Grow fast, multi-cut cultivars
Smart garden marketing likes big heads of lettuce in photos, but single-cut crops hurt ROI. Baby-leaf and cut-and-come-again varieties deliver more grams per site per month.
Prioritize:
- Looseleaf lettuces and baby-leaf mixes
- Basils that tolerate repeated harvests
- Parsley, chives, cutting celery, and other herbs you can trim weekly
A head lettuce that takes 45 days and gets harvested once might give you 150–200 g. The same site in a looseleaf mix, trimmed every 7–10 days, can yield well over 300–400 g in the same window.
3. Maintain EC and pH so growth is not silently throttled
Whether it is a Gardyn tower, a DWC tote, or an NFT rail, hydroponic roots need:
- Stable pH, usually 5.5–6.5 for leafy greens and herbs
- Appropriate EC for the crop stage (often 1.2–2.0 mS/cm for greens)
Most smart gardens hide these details, but the solution they use still follows the same principles described in hydroponic introductions from The Spruce and Epic Gardening.
To keep growth from stalling:
- Use the manufacturer’s nutrient dosing guide as a baseline, but consider checking EC with a small meter if your plants consistently look pale or burnt.
- If your system allows it, test pH once a week and adjust toward the 5.8–6.2 range using pH up/down products.
- Do regular reservoir changes. Even if the app suggests topping up only, a full change every 2–3 weeks prevents nutrient imbalance and salt buildup.
Every point of growth you claw back by fixing EC/pH increases grams harvested per month, which directly improves ROI.
4. Keep the system full and stagger plantings
The highest-yield commercial hydro setups are not full by accident. They stagger plantings so there are always plants at harvestable size.
Borrow that strategy:
- Divide your sites into batches. For a 30-site tower, run three cohorts of 10 sites each, starting each cohort 2 weeks apart.
- Replant a site within a few days of pulling a plant.
This keeps utilization high and prevents long "empty" periods where the hardware and membership are active but producing nothing.
Benchmarks and decision rules: is Gardyn worth it in 2026?
Use your data to make a clear decision instead of relying on marketing or guesswork.
Benchmark 1: Payback time
For many growers, a payback window of 24–36 months is a reasonable target for a premium system like a Gardyn Home or Studio, given the lifestyle and freshness benefits.
If your numbers show:
- Payback under 24 months: You are running the system hard and getting excellent value. Consider adding a second unit if you are outpacing demand.
- Payback 24–48 months: You are in the typical "worth it if you like the experience" zone. Tune photoperiod, cultivars, and utilization to improve.
- Payback over 48 months or negative: Financially weak. Either you are not harvesting enough, your membership/consumable costs are high relative to yield, or both.
Benchmark 2: Cost per serving vs grocery
Look at the true cost per serving (with hardware). If that number is:
- Below your local supermarket salad or herb price: You have a solid financial argument.
- Higher, but within 20–30%: You are paying a premium for freshness, zero pesticides, and convenience. You decide if that is worthwhile.
- Double or more: Treat the garden as an educational or hobby device, not an economic one, or change how you use it.
Benchmark 3: Yield vs system capacity
Compare your yield to ballpark expectations for your hardware:
- 30-site vertical system: aim for at least 1,500–2,000 g per month of greens and herbs once dialed in.
- 16-site system: target 800–1,200 g per month.
- Countertop 9–12 pod unit: 400–800 g per month.
If you are far below these ranges, the limiting factors are usually:
- Under-planted sites (low utilization)
- Suboptimal cultivars (single-cut, slow varieties)
- EC/pH drift or weak nutrients
- Light intensity/photoperiod not matching plant needs
Making your buy/keep/upgrade decision with hard numbers
With your last three months of data, walk through this checklist:
- Is cost per serving (with hardware) below or near grocery pricing for similar-quality greens and herbs?
- Is payback under 3 years at your current usage?
- Are you using at least 70% of your plant sites most of the time?
- Have you tuned photoperiod, cultivars, and basic EC/pH management to a point where plants are consistently vigorous?
If the answer to most of those is yes, your Gardyn, AeroGarden, or Click and Grow is pulling its weight. If not, decide whether to:
- Increase utilization and tune the system for yield
- Downshift to a smaller, cheaper unit
- Or treat the current system as a premium hobby tool rather than a grocery replacement
The core idea is simple: once you log grams harvested, kWh used, and real costs, your smart garden stops being a decorative gadget and becomes what it was always supposed to be - a compact hydroponic appliance that you can evaluate, optimize, and justify with real numbers.
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