Teak price per board foot
Plan on about $28.00 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 $112.00.
Teak earned its legend the hard way: decades of salt, sun, and sailors' boots on the decks of every serious ship, and it simply doesn't care. The wood is loaded with silica and natural oils that laugh at rot, borers, and weather. Old-growth Burmese teak from centuries-old trees is the stuff of legend and embargo; today's plantation teak is the same species on a faster clock — blander, straighter, and the only way most of us will ever afford it.
Oily, silica-laden, and nearly weatherproof — the boatbuilding standard. Dulls edges fast; wipe with solvent before gluing. Priced accordingly.
Teak at a glance
| Price per board foot | $28.00 (2026-08) |
| Weight, dry | 41 lb/ft³ · 3.4 lb per BF |
| Janka hardness | 1,070 lbf |
| Shrinkage, green → oven-dry | 5.3% tangential · 2.6% radial |
| Cost of 10 BF | $280.00 |
| Cost of 25 BF | $700.00 |
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 | $112.00 | 14 lb |
| 6/4 | 6.0 | $168.00 | 21 lb |
| 8/4 | 8.0 | $224.00 | 27 lb |
| 12/4 | 12.0 | $336.00 | 41 lb |
Will it stay flat?
The most weatherproof wood you can buy without a chemistry degree: minimal movement, no black stains around fasteners, and decades outdoors with zero maintenance. It ages; it doesn't fail.
The measured numbers: drying from green, teak shrinks about 5.3% across a flatsawn board's width (tangential) and 2.6% across quartersawn (radial) — that ratio is why the two cuts behave so differently in your house.
Buying teak without regrets
This will be the most expensive wood purchase of your year, so verify you're getting genuine Tectona grandis — the market crawls with 'teak-like' pretenders. Plantation stock is paler and plainer than the old Burma boards, and dramatically cheaper.
At the finishing bench
Teak's oils fight glue and finish both — wipe every joint with acetone minutes before glue-up, no exceptions. Outdoors, skip the 'teak oil' treadmill entirely: let it silver to driftwood gray like every great yacht deck eventually does, and spend those weekends sailing.
Sources & further reading
Prices vary with region, grade, width, and figure. Cheaper neighbor: Wenge ($15.75).