Contribute your sales
Help build an independent record of Michigan’s private timber market, from the sales you made, managed or bought.
Why your sales matter
The DNR’s price reports cover state forest land in the Upper Peninsula and northern Lower Peninsula. Most private timber sales, anywhere in Michigan, leave no public trace: southern Michigan’s walnut, tulip-poplar and hickory, and every private sale north of it.
Stumpage is building that record with the foresters and buyers who handle those sales. One well-described sale, with its species, region, timing and terms, is a figure nobody else has.
How your sales are published
Results are published only by region (Upper Peninsula, Northern Lower Peninsula or Southern Michigan) and by quarter, kept separate from the public DNR record. Every published figure shows how many sales stand behind it, even when that is one.
You decide, sale by sale, whether a sale may be published by region. Names, counties and exact dates are never published, but someone who knows a sale may still recognize it; anonymity cannot be guaranteed. Sales contributed before the regional agreement stay out of regional results unless you opt them in.
What you get
Accepted contributors get the Pro upgrade, which adds the private record, from the day they are accepted, at no charge through December 31, 2026. The upgrade sits on a Basic subscription ($500 a year), which contributors pay for like everyone else. After 2026, Pro is $1,500 a year, and each accepted sale takes $75 off the next year’s Pro renewal, up to $750, so a renewal never falls below $750. Credit is used the following year or lost. The first ten contributors are recorded as founding contributors.
An accepted sale is one Stumpage has entered on the record and not since removed. Stumpage reviews every sale, may decline one, and tells you why; a declined sale is left out of every result and earns no credit. The terms set out what you grant and what you keep.
Who can contribute
Contributions are accepted from qualified forestry professionals with one of the credentials below. Timberland ownership alone does not qualify. Include yours in your first email; Stumpage checks it against the relevant directory or the DNR bid record before accepting any sales.
- Membership in the Association of Consulting Foresters: your name as the ACF directory lists it.
- Michigan Registered Forester: your registration number.
- SAF Certified Forester: your CF number.
- A timber buyer, mill or logger that purchases timber: your company’s name as it appears on DNR bid sheets, and your role there.
Send your sales
Email your sale records in whatever form you already keep them: a spreadsheet, a tally, a contract or a settlement sheet. Stumpage enters each sale by hand and will ask if anything is unclear. What helps:
- Each species and product, with its volume and unit (MBF with the log rule, cords or tons).
- The price per unit where you know it, or the total the sale brought.
- When it sold, as closely as you know it, and the county.
- Whether it was a lump-sum or a scaled sale.
- Whether each sale may be published by region.