Cherry price per board foot
Plan on about $5.85 a board foot for 4/4 stock at U.S. retail (our 2026-08 estimate — your yard gets the final word). A typical board, 6″ wide and 8′ long, will run you around $23.40.
Cherry is the wood that finishes itself — you just have to wait. It leaves the yard pale salmon-pink and then daylight goes to work, deepening it week by week toward the russet glow that made the Shakers and two centuries of Pennsylvania furniture makers swear by it. Try the classic experiment: lay a key on a fresh cherry board on a sunny windowsill, and in a few days you'll lift it to find its silhouette printed in pale wood. That's not a defect. That's the feature.
Machines like a dream and darkens to deep reddish brown with light and age. Blotch-prone under stain — use a washcoat or just let it age.
Cherry at a glance
| Price per board foot | $5.85 (2026-08) |
| Weight, dry | 35 lb/ft³ · 2.9 lb per BF |
| Janka hardness | 950 lbf |
| Shrinkage, green → oven-dry | 7.1% tangential · 3.7% radial |
| Cost of 10 BF | $58.50 |
| Cost of 25 BF | $146.25 |
What common thicknesses cost
Same 6″ × 8′ board, priced by rough thickness (thicker stock often carries a small premium on top of this — figured on volume alone):
| Thickness | Board feet | Cost | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4/4 | 4.0 | $23.40 | 12 lb |
| 6/4 | 6.0 | $35.10 | 18 lb |
| 8/4 | 8.0 | $46.80 | 23 lb |
| 12/4 | 12.0 | $70.20 | 35 lb |
Will it stay flat?
Among the best-behaved boards you can buy — cherry dries true and stays true, which is why doormakers and drawer-makers reach for it when a fit has to hold for decades.
The measured numbers: drying from green, cherry shrinks about 7.1% across a flatsawn board's width (tangential) and 3.7% across quartersawn (radial) — that ratio is why the two cuts behave so differently in your house.
Buying cherry without regrets
Buy for color discipline: heartwood darkens forever, sapwood stays permanently blond, and a sap streak through a tabletop will advertise itself more loudly every year. Pay for all-heart boards on show surfaces. Small gum pockets are cherry's freckles — grade around the big ones.
At the finishing bench
Whatever you do, don't stain it — pigment turns cherry's future patina into instant mud, and it blotches besides. Oil or shellac, sunlight, patience. If the new piece looks too pale next to older cherry furniture, give it a season; it's catching up.
Sources & further reading
Prices vary with region, grade, width, and figure. Cheaper neighbor: Sassafras ($5.25). A step up: Hard Maple ($5.95).