Costs and power / The register

Landed cost register: US store price against Australian price

The US price is public, the Australian price is public, and the distance between them is large enough that most people assume importing wins. This register publishes both, converts the US figure at a stated rate on a stated date, and then stops, because the sum cannot be finished. Nobody publishes what it costs to ship one of these to Australia, and Australian GST on an import is charged on a base that includes the freight, so the missing number takes the tax with it.

Prices, exchange rate and published import terms checked 10 September 2026

The two published prices, side by side

The US column is Harvest Right's own store price in USD exactly as published. The Australian column is the cheapest new Australian listing of the same size in AUD exactly as published. The middle column is the only computed figure in the table.

Finishes are matched where they can be. For the Medium and the Large the US price quoted is the painted finish and the Australian listing is the powder coated black, which is the same finish class. For the X-Large, stainless steel is the only finish either side sells. Harvest Right Small has no Australian listing at all, which is a finding in itself: Harvest Right's own Australian summary states the Small is not sold in Australia, so the entry point here is the Medium.

That difference is a budget, not a saving

The right-hand column runs from $4,587 to $8,593. Read it as the amount available to spend on getting a US machine here and legal before the import stops making sense, rather than as money saved. Five things have to come out of it, and not one of them is published by anyone in this market.

The register: every element, and what is published against it

This is the whole of a landed cost, line by line. Ten elements: two are published, one is computed from them, six are blank at source, and the last cannot be calculated because it depends on one of the blanks.

What the sources actually say about the missing lines

Freight

Not published. Harvest Right publishes no shipping price for Australia anywhere, and its own wording is that international pricing 'may vary' and that the buyer should contact the company, which is quotation on application rather than at checkout. OzFarmer likewise does not publish a flat freight price for a freeze dryer and asks buyers to phone for a freight quote. Record as unknown. This is an action item: it needs a written quote from Harvest Right for a named Australian postcode before any landed-cost figure is published on the site.

Tax, duty and brokerage

Nothing Australia-specific, but there is a general international statement, and it puts the charges on the buyer. Harvest Right says international orders attract additional duties, taxes and brokerage fees under the buyer's own country's customs law. It does not name Australia, does not mention GST, and does not offer a landed-cost or delivered-duty-paid option. Buying from OzFarmer sidesteps the question because the price is an Australian retail price in AUD from Australian stock.

The numbers you would need to close the gap

One number completes this register: a written freight quote to an Australian postcode. Harvest Right does publish the shipping data a forwarder asks for, in its own imperial units, and it is reproduced here exactly as published rather than converted, because converting it would add precision the source does not carry.

Ask for a delivered price to your postcode in writing, and ask who clears customs and who pays the brokerage. Until that reply exists, the comparison is a published AUD price against an incomplete one, and the published one wins by default.

One product at two prices is the wrong picture

Even a completed landed cost would not settle this, because the two columns are not the same machine. The variants the US storefront sells are 110 volt. The machine an Australian distributor holds is 240 volt on a standard 10 amp Australian plug, so it runs from an ordinary wall socket with nothing between it and the outlet. Harvest Right publishes a complete 220 volt specification for every size, and those variants are catalogued but not purchasable from the US store.

The warranty looks different in the two columns too, and not in the way the numbers suggest. The 36 months advertised beside the US price is the continental United States position. A machine delivered to Australia, by either route, falls under the Limited International Warranty at 12 months, with telephone and email support, parts at the manufacturer's option, and local labour and parts freight on the owner. What the Australian purchase adds is a contract with an Australian supplier, which carries Australian Consumer Law guarantees that an import from a US company does not.

The route comparison in full, including delivery times and who will repair a pump here, is on the import page. Every Australian price in one table is on the Australian price register.

Common questions

What exchange rate are the Australian dollar figures on this page computed at?

1.3827 AUD per USD, which is the reciprocal of the Reserve Bank of Australia's published 4.00 pm rate of 0.7232 USD per AUD for 9 September 2026. Every AUD figure derived from a USD price on this page is computed, not published, and the rate is shown beside each one so it can be checked or replaced. The RBA rate is a market mid-point, so a card issuer or a merchant converting at checkout applies a worse rate plus a foreign transaction fee. A figure converted at this rate is a floor rather than what a card is actually charged.

Why does this register not give a total landed cost?

Because one of the terms is missing and the missing term also drives the tax. Harvest Right publishes no freight price to Australia, and the Australian resellers quote freight by phone rather than publishing it. Australian GST on an imported good is levied on the value of the taxable importation, which includes international transport and insurance, so an unknown freight makes the tax unknown as well. Publishing a total would mean inventing the largest missing number and then computing a tax on the invention.

How much cheaper is the US machine once it is converted to Australian dollars?

Converted at 1.3827 AUD per USD, the published US store prices sit $4,587 to $8,593 below the cheapest Australian listing of the same size. That gap is not a saving. It is the entire budget available to cover freight, customs duty, GST, a brokerage fee and a step-down transformer before importing stops making financial sense, and none of those five costs is published by anyone.

Is the US machine the same machine the Australian reseller sells?

No, and this is the reason the two price columns are not a like-for-like comparison. The variants purchasable on the US storefront are 110 volt. The machine an Australian distributor supplies is 240 volt on a standard 10 amp Australian plug. Harvest Right catalogues a 220 volt specification for every size but does not sell those variants from the US store. The advertised warranty differs too: 36 months beside the US price, 12 months on the Australian listing, which is the Limited International Warranty that applies to a machine delivered here by either route.