Free tool · Before you spend eighty hours on an application

A Grant Is Not Free Money

There is usually a cash match, always an application cost, and often years of reporting attached. Some grants are worth chasing and some quietly cost you more than they pay.

What the grant is actually worth to you, after the match and the compliance
The odds you need for pursuing it to make sense, which is the one number nobody calculates
Handles the case where the match is spend you had planned anyway, which changes the answer completely
Runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to us or saved anywhere

$3,500

the grant Painterland started with

3 min

before you commit eighty hours

and no call required

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Tell us where to send it and it opens straight away.

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A worked example

A $50,000 Grant That Is Worth Minus Four Hundred Dollars

A fifty thousand dollar grant with a fifty percent cash match. Eighty hours of application work at $50 an hour, three thousand for a grant writer, and twenty hours a year of reporting for three years. A thirty percent chance of winning it.

Grant sought$50,000

Less the cash match you have to put in−$25,000

Gross benefit if awarded$25,000

Less three years of reporting and compliance−$3,000

Net if you win$22,000

Cost to pursue it, win or lose−$7,000

Expected value at 30% odds−$400

32%

the odds you need before this is worth pursuing at all

+$6,200

expected value if your real chance is 60%

+$7,100

at the same 30% odds, if the match is spend you had planned anyway

Never

a $20,000 grant with a 100% match loses money even when you win

Nothing about that first number means grants are a bad idea. It means this grant, at these odds, with this match, is a bad idea. Change the odds and it is worth $6,200. Change the nature of the match and it is worth $7,100 at the original odds.

That third column is the one worth sitting with. If you were going to buy the equipment regardless, the match is not a cost, it is spend the grant subsidises. The same application is a good idea or a bad one depending entirely on whether you had already decided to make the investment, and almost nobody separates those two questions before they start writing.

What it asks for

Seven Figures, Most Of Which Are In The Funding Notice

The match percentage, reporting term and eligible costs are all in the program's notice of funding opportunity. The estimates of your own time are the ones you have to be honest about.

Grant amount sought

What you would actually apply for, not the program ceiling.

Cash match required

As a percentage. Many agricultural programs require a match of some kind, and whether that match is new spend or planned spend changes everything.

Hours to apply, and your rate

Be realistic. Applications that look like a weekend are frequently two.

Grant writer fee

If you are using one. Zero if you are not.

Reporting hours and years

The obligation that outlasts the money, and the one most applicants price at zero.

Your honest odds

If you do not know, the tool works backwards and tells you the number you would need to believe.

Useful if

You are looking at a specific program and wondering whether to apply
Someone has suggested a grant writer and you want to know if the fee pays back
You are weighing two programs and can only pursue one
You have won grants before and the reporting was worse than expected
You are being told to chase funding and you are not convinced

Probably not, if

You want to know whether you are eligible. That is in the program's notice of funding opportunity, and this tool does not assess eligibility
You want help writing the application. This decides whether to write it
The grant has no match and no reporting, in which case the arithmetic is simple enough to do in your head

$3,500the grant Painterland Sisters started with

“We would simply not be where we are today if it weren’t for the supportive team at Good Roots.”

– Stephanie Painter, Painterland Sisters

Their first money was a $3,500 grant from the Center for Dairy Excellence, which paid to set up the business structure and launch the brand. Small, no heavy match, quick to apply for. It was the right grant because it funded something they had already decided to do, which is exactly the distinction this calculator is built around. They later raised $1.2M on WeFunder.

Read what happened

Being straight with you

What Happens After You Put Your Email In

The tool opens immediately No waiting, no download. It runs in your browser and none of your figures reach us.
You get one email with the link So you can come back to it with the funding notice open beside you.
Then occasional practical notes Every couple of weeks, written by the consultants who do this work. One click unsubscribes and we do not sell your data.
No sales call unless you ask for one There is a link on the tool if you want to talk it through. If not, nothing happens.

This is not grant-writing, eligibility or legal advice. Match requirements, eligible costs and reporting terms change from cycle to cycle and differ by program. Read the notice of funding opportunity for the program you are considering, and take advice on anything that determines whether you qualify. This tool only answers whether the money is worth the effort, assuming you do.

And the point of it: grant funding is genuinely transformative for some operations and a distraction for others. We have helped clients win grants that started whole businesses, and we have told clients not to bother. Working out which one you are looking at takes about three minutes. How our business consulting works.