How Much Is a Cord of Wood?

Cord of wood prices by region, October 2026

We collected the prices firewood sellers publish on their own websites: 47 sellers in 17 states, all checked on October 19, 2026. Every price is converted to a full cord of 128 cubic feet, the legal definition, so a face cord, a half cord or a rick can be compared on the same footing. The headline figures use orders of a full cord or more, because that is what most households buy for a winter and small orders cost a lot more per cord.

Each seller counts once, at the median of its prices converted to a full cord (128 cu ft). States appear on their own once they have 5 or more sellers. Prices were collected from sellers' websites on 19 Oct 2026.

The four regions land close together, from $413 to $455 at the median. The spread inside each region is wider than the gap between them: what you pay depends more on the seller, the wood and the order than on where you live. Counting every order size, including face cords and bundles, the national median rises to $510 per full cord.

New Hampshire’s Department of Energy publishes a statewide average for cord wood: $458.82 on October 5, 2026, which sits inside the Northeast’s middle half.

How much is a face cord or half cord of wood?

Sellers quote in whatever unit they stack in, so the same wood can look cheap or expensive depending on the unit. Converting every quote to a full cord makes them comparable. In our survey, the smaller the order, the more each cord cost:

Each listing counts once, converted to a full cord (128 cu ft). Listings with no stated value are left out of this table. Prices were collected from sellers' websites on 19 Oct 2026.

A face cord is one 4 × 8 ft face of a stack, as deep as the pieces are long. With 16-inch pieces it holds a third of a cord, so multiply a 16-inch face cord price by three to get the full-cord price. “Rick” means different things in different places; ask the seller for the stack’s length, height and piece length before you compare.

What changes the price

Seasoning moves the price more than anything else in our data. Green wood is cut recently and still full of water; seasoned wood has been stored for months to dry; kiln-dried wood has been dried in a kiln and often sells in smaller lots.

Each listing counts once, converted to a full cord (128 cu ft). Listings with no stated value are left out of this table. Prices were collected from sellers' websites on 19 Oct 2026.

The other things that change a quote:

• Delivery. In our survey, listings with delivery included had a median of $515 per full cord, against $450 where delivery was charged separately. HomeGuide puts delivery fees at $25 to $100 a load for longer trips and says most sellers include local delivery.
• Stacking. Most sellers dump the wood. HomeGuide lists stacking at $20 to $80 per cord; Angi gives $25 to $80 per load.
• Species. Dense hardwoods such as oak and hickory carry more heat per cord than softwoods; the firewood BTU chart compares them. HomeGuide puts softwood at $175 to $275 a cord.
• Order size. Two or more cords at once usually cost less per cord, and small lots cost much more, as the table above shows.

Compare quotes: price per full cord

The calculator above converts any quote to a price per full cord. Take three example quotes for seasoned hardwood:

• A full cord delivered for $425: that’s $425 per full cord.
• A face cord of 16-inch wood for $150: three face cords make a cord, so it’s $450 per full cord.
• A half cord for $275: two make a cord, so it’s $550 per full cord.

The face cord that looked cheapest is mid-priced, and the half cord is the most expensive per cord. Check what each includes, delivery and stacking especially, before you choose. For a truckload, use the calculator’s truck tab to estimate how many cords the bed holds, then enter the price.

How not to get a short cord

A full cord is 128 cubic feet of wood stacked tight. When it arrives, stack it and measure: length × height × piece length, all in feet. A stack 8 ft long and 4 ft high of 16-inch pieces is 42.7 cubic feet, a third of a cord. A pile thrown loosely in a truck bed takes up more room than the same wood stacked, so measure after stacking. The firewood calculator turns those measurements into cords. The cord of wood guide covers measuring and what state rules require of sellers.

What cost guides say

National cost guides give wider and older ranges than our seller survey. Angi’s 2026 guide puts a full cord at $150 to $500 with a $300 average, based on its customer surveys. HomeGuide, in a guide dated January 2026, gives $275 to $400 for a delivered cord of split, seasoned hardwood. Our median of $415 is above HomeGuide’s range and in the upper part of Angi’s. That fits sellers publishing prices online, a group that leans toward delivered, seasoned and kiln-dried wood.

How we collected these prices

• What we collected: prices that firewood sellers publish on their own websites, read on October 19, 2026 from 57 pages. We kept only facts: the price, the unit as listed, the seller, the city and state, and the page address. We respected each site’s robots.txt and skipped any site that asked not to be crawled.
• How we converted them: every price to a full cord of 128 cubic feet, from the seller’s stated volume, the stack’s stated dimensions, the piece length for a face cord or rick, or the seller’s own fraction of a cord.
• What we left out: of 237 listings, 46 couldn’t be converted or were out of date: face cords with no piece length, loosely thrown loads, approximate volumes and old price lists.
• How we summarize: each seller counts once, at the median of its listings. A state gets its own figure once it has five sellers; the rest are grouped by Census region.
• Limits: this is one day at the start of the season, from sellers who post prices online. Some regions have only a handful of sellers per state, and the sample leans toward delivered and kiln-dried wood. A larger winter survey will follow.