Indoor Hydroponic Garden Cost: A Real 12-Month Breakdown

Everyone wants to know: is an indoor hydroponic garden actually cheaper than the grocery store? We tracked every dollar in and every dollar saved across 12 months. Here are the real numbers.

Hardware (one-time)

• AeroGarden Harvest 360: $129
• Replacement grow lights (not needed year one): $0
• Extra "grow anything" baskets: $20

Consumables (per year)

• Seed pods or seeds + rockwool: $80
• Liquid nutrients (one bottle lasts 2 years): $15
• pH test kit and adjusters: $25

Electricity

A 6-pod unit runs ~25W average across 16 hours of light per day. At the U.S. average of $0.16/kWh, that's $24/year.

Total year-one cost

$293 — including hardware. Year two and beyond drop to $120/year.

Grocery savings

A 6-pod garden running continuously produces roughly:

• 3 heads of lettuce per month — $12 retail.
• 4 oz fresh basil per month — $16 retail.
• 3 oz fresh parsley per month — $9 retail.

That's ~$37/month or $444/year in fresh produce.

Break-even

Year one nets ~$151 saved. Year two and beyond: ~$324 saved annually. Plus produce that tastes dramatically better than anything from a clamshell.

A closer look at our 12-month spreadsheet

The numbers above are the headline. The breakdown below is what actually showed up in our accounting once we tracked every coffee-shop receipt-style cost for a year of running a single AeroGarden Harvest 360 in a north-facing London kitchen.

• Months 1–2: Heaviest spend — £104 for the unit, £24 in pods, £18 in a starter pH kit. Zero harvest yet, just patience.
• Months 3–6: Spend flattens to roughly £6/month in pods plus £2 in electricity. Harvest hits steady-state at ~140 g of usable greens per month.
• Months 7–12: Replaced one failed seed pod (the unit's only quibble all year) and added a Cal-Mag bottle (£9) once we noticed lettuce tip-burn on a hard-water cycle.

Where the savings really come from

Cut herbs are the killer category. A 25 g supermarket pot of basil costs around £1.20 in the UK and goes slimy in five days. Our garden delivered the equivalent of 22 of those pots across the year — £26.40 just in basil. Lettuce was a smaller win because supermarket lettuce is cheap; the difference was quality, not money.

What we would not buy again

The brand-name liquid plant food pods. After three months we switched to a £14 bottle of General Hydroponics MaxiGro powder, mixed at half-strength, and saw no measurable difference in growth rate, leaf colour, or yield. That single swap took our running cost from roughly £15/month to under £4/month.

For the full nutrient deep-dive, see our nutrients guide.

Frequently asked questions

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