The objective of this study was to determine growth, health, and profitability of organic dairy calves fed an organic milk replacer (MR) versus pasteurized whole milk (WM) in an automated group feeding system. The study was conducted at the University of Minnesota West Central Research and Outreach Center’s, Morris, MN, organic dairy. Eighty-one Holstein and crossbred calves were assigned to feeding groups by birth order during 2 calving seasons from March to July 2018 and from September to December 2018. Calves were introduced to the Holm & Laue HL100 Programmable Calf Feeder (Holm & Laue GmbH & Co KG, Westerronfeld, Germany) at 5 d and were allowed to drink up to 8 L/d at the maximum allowance. Calves were weaned from the automated feeder at 56 d. Data were analyzed using PROC MIXED of SAS. Independent variables for analyses were the fixed effects of breed group, season of birth, treatment group, the interaction of season and treatment group, along with pen as a random effect. No differences (P < 0.05) were found between MR or WM groups for average daily gain, weaning weight, hip height, and heart girth. The WM calves had shorter (P < 0.05) feeding station visit durations (2.44 min) than MR calves (3.01 min), slower (P < 0.05) consumption rates (1.85 L/min) than MR calves (2.48 L/min), and higher (P < 0.05) consumption amounts (1.52 L/visit) than MR calves (1.32 L/visit). On a daily basis, WM calves had more unrewarded visits to the feeding station (16.07) than MR calves (12.07), fewer unfulfilled visits (3.02 visits) than MR calves (10.34), and fewer fulfilled visits (3.73) than MR calves (5.05). Drinking speeds of WM calves were higher (P < 0.05) (1,301.4 mL/min) than the MR calves (581.0 mL/min). The MR calves had higher (P < 0.05) fecal scores than WM calves. The cost per kg of gain for MR ($8.82/kg) calves was (P < 0.05) higher compared with the WM ($6.35/kg) calves. The results from this study indicate that there may be both health and economic advantages to feeding organic dairy calves whole milk during the pre-weaning period.