What a Beef Share Costs Per Pound
The first question everyone asks, and the one most easily answered misleadingly. Here is the arithmetic done honestly.
Here is the arithmetic, using our own published prices and packaged weights as they stood on 21 October 2026.
The division
- 1/8 share. $825 for 40 to 42 lbs packaged. That is about $19.60 to $20.60 a pound.
- Quarter share. $1,580 for about 85 lbs. About $18.60 a pound.
- Half share. $3,000 for about 175 lbs. About $17.10 a pound.
So the per-pound figure falls as the share gets larger, which is the main economic argument for buying more at once. Full prices including the dry-aged versions are in what a beef share costs.
Which weight, and why it matters
Those figures use packaged weight, which is what you carry home. A whole beef or a side is billed on hanging weight instead, which is higher, so a per-pound price quoted against hanging weight always looks cheaper than the same beef quoted against packaged. That difference is explained in what a whole beef costs.
Anyone quoting you a per-pound price for beef without saying which weight it refers to is not being straight with you, and it is the oldest trick in this business.
“Yeah, sometimes you see that people think it's going to be cheaper. And the logic is, well, hey, we've cut out the middleman, right? If we don't have the distributor, we don't have the transportation, it's not going to Nebraska and back. We should have saved a whole lot of costs.”
Gray Shipley
What to compare it against
Not ground beef. A share is a basket: steaks, roasts, ground and bones in the proportion the animal carries them. Comparing $17 a pound against supermarket ground beef is comparing a mixed basket against its cheapest component.
The fair comparison is what the same mix of cuts would cost bought separately, and on that basis a share is the cheapest way to buy our beef. It is not the cheapest way to buy beef in general, and we are not going to claim it is.
“Yeah, the reality is it costs more because it costs more. It costs more to do things responsibly.”
Gray Shipley
“Or the other side of it is it's the lower quality meat is made cheaper because you're giving up something. You're giving up the authenticity and the quality and the process.”
Gray Shipley
$825 for 40 to 42 lbs packaged. Do the division yourself.
View ProductWhat does a beef share actually work out to per pound?
Divide the share price by the packaged weight, not the hanging weight, and compare against a basket rather than against ground beef.
- Freezing and Food Safety, USDA FSIS
Food-safety temperatures and storage times on this page are cited to the agencies above rather than to us.
Written at Shipley Farms in Vilas, North Carolina: a family cattle farm raising and dry-aging beef in the Appalachian Mountains, now in its fifth generation. No shortcuts since 1872.
Every quote on this page is Gray Shipley talking, the man who runs this farm. We sat down with him, turned on a recorder, and kept his own words. Hesitations are trimmed so they read on the page. Nothing else is added or reworded, except where Gray revised his own words in review.
Nobody knows this beef better than we do. On food safety we leave it to USDA FSIS, and we have linked their page above. Reviewed 3 October 2026.
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