Drainage ROI & Payback Calculator — in seconds.
Is tile drainage worth it on this field? Put in acres, install cost, and an expected yield bump — and get simple payback in years and your 10-year return in seconds. Enough to screen a field, set expectations, or check a pitch — before you pay for a design or a survey.
A field-average estimate from a few numbers — not a promise for any single acre. Real payback depends on which acres are actually wet and how the crop responds in a given year. Mapping the field and designing the tile system to fit it is the full app (a flat membership — unlimited fields, no per-acre fees).
A tile drainage ROI calculator and drainage payback calculator for agricultural fields. Estimate simple payback in years, added revenue per acre from a yield lift, and 10-year net return on a pattern-tile investment. Built by Geo-Surface Pro — the flat-fee membership for designing surface drainage, tile drainage, and land forming (Beta), all in your browser, on unlimited fields with no per-acre charges in every supported region.
Estimate in seconds
Payback years and 10-year return, before you spend a dollar on tile
Enter the acres you'd drain, the install cost per acre, and the yield lift you expect. You get simple payback in years, the added value per year, and where you stand after 10 years. Figures are in feet and acres; the app itself works in metric where your region does.
Field & install cost
Enter your own installed cost; a contractor’s quote is the best number to use.
Yield response
Picking a crop loads a mid-range yield lift and price you can edit. University tile-response studies commonly report corn ~10–25 bu/ac and soybeans ~3–7 bu/ac on responsive ground — response varies by soil, wetness and year.
Any added seed or fertility you'd spend on the drained acres to chase the higher yield — leave at $0 if none. It's subtracted from the added value each year.
Your estimate
Simple payback
At these numbers, simple payback is under 10 years.
How this estimate is calculated
A simple, transparent payback model — the back-of-envelope math used to screen whether tile pays:
- Added value per acre per year =
yield lift × crop price − extra annual cost. Corn at 20 bu/ac and $5.00/bu, with no extra cost, is $100/ac per year. - Added value per year (field) =
added value per acre × acres. - Simple payback (years) =
installed cost per acre ÷ added value per acre. If the added value is zero or negative, there is no payback at those numbers — we say so instead of showing a fake figure. - 10-year net per acre =
(10 × added value per acre) − installed cost per acre; the field total multiplies that by acres. - This is simple payback: it ignores the time-value of money, financing, and year-to-year price and yield swings. It's a first-pass screen, not an NPV.
- Defaults are mid-range figures. University tile-response studies commonly report corn ~10–25 bu/ac and soybeans ~3–7 bu/ac on responsive ground; actual response varies by soil, wetness and year. And it's a field average — the return depends on which acres are wet, which the full app maps so you can price a design zone by zone.
Read this before you bank on it
It's a field-average estimate, not a per-acre answer
This calculator spreads one yield lift and one cost evenly across every acre. Real fields aren't uniform — some acres are genuinely wet and respond strongly to tile, others were already draining fine and barely move. Treat the number as a whole-field screen to decide whether tile is worth a closer look — not a per-acre promise, and not a figure to sign a contract on.
Good enough to
- Screen whether tile is worth investigating on a field
- Set a rough payback expectation before you spend
- Sanity-check an ROI a seller or contractor quotes
- Compare crops, prices or install costs side by side
Not built to
- Promise a return on any single acre
- Tell you which acres are wet enough to pay
- Model financing, NPV, or year-to-year price swings
- Replace a soil-based ROI or an RTK survey
The single biggest thing this estimate can't see is which acres are wet. Yield response comes from the wet ground — university tile-response studies commonly report corn ~10–25 bu/ac and soybeans ~3–7 bu/ac on responsive soils, and response varies by soil, wetness and year. Averaged over a whole field, a strong response on the wet acres can look mediocre. Seeing where the water sits — and laying out a tile system around it — is what Geo-Surface Pro is for.
Plan and estimate from elevation data — survey and grade with RTK when the job goes ahead. Geo-Surface Pro turns this ballpark into a graded, sized tile layout over the real field, with elevation built in, so there's no survey just to plan. The committed job then hands off as a plan, quantities, and a client-ready PDF report — and gets surveyed and graded with RTK on site, the way you already work.
Questions people ask before they tile
Is tile drainage worth it?
It depends on how many acres are actually wet and how much yield those acres are losing to standing water or a saturated root zone. On wet ground, tile often improves yields enough to cover its cost; on ground that already drains, it may not. Run your own numbers. There's no single yes or no — that's exactly what the calculator above is for. Put in your acres, your install cost, and your expected yield lift and it'll show you where your field lands.
How long does tile drainage take to pay back?
Payback swings a lot with your install cost, your yield lift, and crop prices, so there's no single average worth quoting here. Run your own numbers through the calculator above and you'll get a simple payback figure for the numbers you entered, not an invented industry figure.
How much yield does tile drainage add?
It varies — by soil, by how wet the ground actually is, and by the growing season. University tile-response studies commonly report corn ~10–25 bu/ac and soybeans ~3–7 bu/ac on responsive ground, but your field could land anywhere in or outside that range. Plug in the lift you expect (or start from the crop defaults) and the calculator above turns it into a payback and a 10-year return for your acres.
The calculator screens the payback. Pro lays out the tile system so you can price it on the real field.
This calculator spreads one number over the whole field. Geo-Surface Pro doesn't stop at a number — it's the full design suite: surface drainage, tile drainage, and land forming (Beta), all in your browser. Tile spacing suggestions start from the mapped soil survey for your field and cite their sources, and the design comes out the other end as a client-ready report. One flat membership covers unlimited fields and acres, with no per-acre fees.
One membership, three jobs: surface drainage · tile design · land forming (Beta).
- Spacing from the soil survey. Suggested starting spacing, depth and drainage coefficient for the mapped soil under your field — cited to NRCS EFH Ch. 14, ASAE EP260.5, the Iowa Drainage Guide and OMAFRA Pub. 29.
- Graded and sized, not just totaled. Mains and laterals sized with Manning's equation and graded with an auto best-fit solver — stepped mains, connection enforcement, a live profile chart, over your real field boundary.
- Then hand it over, however the job gets built. For land forming (Beta), export machine files — the AGD design file with calibration benchmarks (supported by Ditch Assist and other popular machine control systems), AGS, CSV, Trimble WM-Form .gps (Beta). Tile and surface plans hand over as a client-ready PDF report, quantities, and CAD files for your contractor. Installable files (Beta) are for use only after each run or area is driven or surveyed with RTK and its final grades are reviewed and approved on the display; every other file is reference only.
One US$799/yr annual membership covers every current feature, unlimited fields and acres, and no per-acre fees. Backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee.
