Vanilla Bean Prices: What Does a Kilo Really Cost?

At our shop, the price of a Madagascar vanilla bean ranges from €1.58 per bean in a 5-bean pack to about €0.58 per bean in the 5 kg size, or from €451 to €165 per kilo. The difference comes down to the grade and length of the beans, how they are cured, organic certification and, above all, the size of the pack: the more you buy, the lower the price per kilo.

What determines the price of a vanilla bean

Two vanilla beans can differ in price by a factor of three without coming from different countries. From the producer’s side, six factors set the price.

Grade

The grade describes how the bean looks. A Grade A bean, known as “gourmet,” is whole, supple, glossy and flawless: it is the one you split and scrape for baking, and it is the most expensive. Extraction grades, less attractive and sometimes split or cut, sell for less and are mainly used to make extract. Vanilla grades explained

Length

Within the same grade, a long bean sells for more than a short one: it is rarer and easier to work with. Our Black Gourmet beans measure 15 to 22 cm.

Origin

All our beans are Vanilla planifolia, the Bourbon vanilla of Madagascar, harvested on the northeast coast, from Mananara Nord to Maroantsetra. Origin affects the price because it shapes the aroma, and because volumes and market prices vary from one growing region to another.

Curing

A vanilla bean has neither flavor nor color when it is picked. It goes through scalding, a hot-water bath that stops it from ripening, then sweating, which turns it brown and develops its aromas, then sun drying and shade drying. These steps, carried out by the producer families, take two to three months and already include a first conditioning, with its own sorting, drying and resting in wooden trunks. Then comes the final conditioning. In Antananarivo, our team gives the beans about four more weeks: a second sorting, bean by bean, a second drying if the quality calls for it, massaging and sizing, then a second rest of about two weeks in wooden trunks before shipping. That time is what gives the vanilla its very mellow fragrance, with no sharp notes. It takes about five kilos of green vanilla to make one kilo of cured vanilla: that time and that weight loss are reflected in the price.

Organic certification

Our vanilla beans are certified organic by Ecocert. Certification requires inspections and lot-by-lot traceability, which come at a cost for the curer. Our certifications

Packaging

A single bean sold in a tube or vial costs far more per kilo than a bean sold in a bag of several hundred grams: packaging, handling and margin are spread over much less vanilla.

Price per bean or price per kilo: why a kilo costs less

A Black Gourmet bean weighs 3.5 g on average, so one kilo contains about 285 beans. The table below gives the approximate number of beans in each size:

At our shop, a bean costs €1.58 in the 5-bean pack, about €0.68 in the 1 kg bag and about €0.58 in the 5 kg size. Bean weight naturally varies from one lot to another: these numbers are averages. How many beans for your recipe?

From grower to bag: who sets the price?

In a conventional supply chain, vanilla changes hands several times: the grower sells green vanilla to a collector, who resells it to a curer, who sells it cured to an exporter. Once it reaches Europe, an importer and then one or more distributors step in before it lands on the shelf. Each step adds its own margin.

Our supply chain is shorter. In 2026, we buy our organic cured vanilla, after a first conditioning, for 160,000 ariary per kilo from producer families in the region from Mananara Nord to Maroantsetra. These families belong to a cooperative certified organic by Ecocert, whose certification we helped finance. The families already do careful work, but we want everything we export to be flawless: so in Antananarivo, our team continues the conditioning rigorously, starting with a second sorting, bean by bean, a second drying if needed, massaging and a second rest in wooden trunks, before vacuum sealing the vanilla. Finally, the vanilla joins our stock in France, from where we ship it. Our story

The real price of vanilla for the people who grow it

Since June 2026, the Malagasy government has set a minimum price for green vanilla: 10,000 ariary per kilo for beans longer than 13 cm (source: The Rio Times, September 7, 2026). Yet it takes about five kilos of green vanilla to make one kilo of cured vanilla: at that price, a kilo of cured vanilla brings the grower barely 50,000 ariary. On the ground, in our experience, cured vanilla often sells for around 50,000 to 60,000 ariary per kilo.

That is why we never buy green vanilla. We encourage producer families to cure their vanilla themselves and to sell only part of their harvest at a time. In 2026, we buy their cured vanilla for 160,000 ariary per kilo, nearly three times the going rate.

For the record, from July 2020 to May 2023, the Malagasy government imposed a minimum export price of $250 per kilo of cured vanilla (source: Mintec, May 31, 2023). In 2018, export prices had approached $600 per kilo (source: The Rio Times, September 7, 2026).

How to spot a price that is too low

A price far below the market rate often hides a flaw:

• spent vanilla, already used for extraction, with almost no aroma left;
• overly dry beans, brittle and lighter, which are therefore sold by the count rather than by weight;
• added flavorings, such as synthetic vanillin sprayed onto mediocre beans.

A quality bean is supple, oily to the touch, dark brown to black, and its fragrance is rounded, with no chemical note. How to recognize real vanilla

Our price list: Black Gourmet beans

Prices include VAT and are the same throughout the European Union. Free shipping within mainland France.

Frequently asked questions