Greater milk price volatility has raised questions about how future pasture-based farm systems should be adapted to maximize farm profitability. We evaluated the factors associated with economic robustness in pasture-based dairy systems using the financial results of all of the dairy farms with longitudinally complete records over 8 yr (n = 315), which allowed us to assess the effects of volatile milk prices, input costs, and adverse weather challenges on net profit/ha. A series of analyses were undertaken to characterize the longitudinal trends in physical and financial performance for farms ranked by average operating profit (i.e., net profit/ha) and, separately, according to the quantity of feed purchased. All analyses were undertaken using a mixed model framework in PROC MIXED where herd nested within region was included as a repeated effect with an autoregressive covariance structure assumed among records within herd. Study farms expanded and intensified during the study period, with increases in milk fat and protein yield per cow (+15%; P < 0.001) over the 8 yr; mean annual pasture DM consumed/ha also increased linearly (+19%; P < 0.05). When nested within region and ranked by quartiles (highest to lowest) for 8-yr average farm net profit/ha, the highest profit quartile were, on average, smaller farms with greater technical efficiency; farm net profit per hectare were €1,611, €1,189, €937 and €630 for the highest, second highest, second lowest and lowest profit quartiles respectively. Pasture-based production systems with greater use of non-pasture feeds achieved greater (P < 0.05) milk production/cow, but not per hectare, and consistently lower farm profitability across years. Results indicate that high profit farms are also most ‘resilient’, exhibiting a greater capacity to recover profit after low milk price events or adverse weather yr. The results reinforce the association between utilization of grazed pasture and net farm profit. Furthermore, the results highlight that importing more than 10% of the cow’s diet as a supplement to pasture can reduce farm profitability, even in high milk price years.