Guides
Each guide answers one question and links to the calculator that does the arithmetic.
How to Calculate Profit Margin
The profit margin formula, the difference between gross and net margin, and the three mistakes that make online sellers overstate their profit.
Etsy Fees Explained
Every fee Etsy charges sellers — listing, 6.5% transaction, payment processing and Offsite Ads — and the shipping detail most sellers miscalculate.
How Much Should I Charge as a Freelancer?
Work your freelance rate backwards from the income you need, after tax, expenses and the unbillable hours nobody pays you for.
What Is a Good Profit Margin for an Online Store?
Why there is no single correct margin figure, what actually determines a healthy one, and the three numbers that matter more than the percentage.
Break-Even Analysis for a Small Business
How to calculate your break-even point in units and revenue, and which of the three levers actually lowers it fastest.
How to Price Handmade Products
A pricing method for handmade sellers that includes your time, real postage and platform fees — plus why doubling your material cost is not enough.
Gross vs Net Profit
Gross profit, operating profit and net profit explained with one worked example, and why sellers who track only gross profit misjudge their business.
7 Hidden Costs of Selling Online
Payment processing minimums, return postage, currency conversion and four more costs that quietly remove profit from every online sale.
Markup vs Margin
Markup and margin use the same two numbers and give different answers. The formulas, a conversion table, and the pricing error that costs sellers real money.
How to Price a Product for Resale
A five-step method for pricing a product you buy to resell: true landed cost, fee load, target margin, market check, and the floor price you never go below.
How to Calculate Cost of Goods Sold
What belongs in COGS and what does not, the standard formula, a worked example, and why getting this line wrong distorts every margin you calculate.
Contribution Margin Explained
Contribution margin per unit and as a ratio, how it differs from gross margin, and how to use it to decide which products deserve your attention.
What Is ROI and How to Calculate It
The ROI formula, why it answers a different question from margin, how to use it to compare stock purchases, and where it misleads.
eBay Fees Explained
How eBay's seller fees are structured — final value fee, per-order fixed amount, insertion fees and optional extras — and how to build them into a price.
Shopify vs a Marketplace: Cost Structures
Own-store costs are mostly fixed and marketplace costs are mostly variable. What that means for your break-even, and at what point each one wins.
Amazon FBA vs FBM
How fulfilment by Amazon and merchant fulfilment differ in cost structure, the variables that decide it, and how to compare them on your own product.
Print on Demand Profit Margins
How to calculate real profit on a print-on-demand product once base cost, platform fees, shipping and design time are all counted.
Free Shipping vs Charging Shipping
Free shipping does not remove the cost, it moves it into your margin — and on some platforms it also increases the fee you pay. How to model it before offering it.
Discount Math
A discount comes entirely out of profit, not revenue. The formula for the extra volume a discount must generate to break even, with a table.
How to Raise Prices Without Losing Customers
When a price increase is overdue, how large it should be, and the sequencing that keeps existing customers. Includes the volume you can afford to lose.
How to Set a Minimum Order Value
Fixed per-order costs make small orders unprofitable regardless of margin percentage. How to find the order value where you actually break even.
Converting a Salary Into a Freelance Rate
Why your old salary divided by 2,080 hours is far too low as a freelance rate, and the four adjustments that produce the real number.
Project Rate vs Hourly Rate
The incentives each pricing model creates, when a fixed project fee earns more, and how to build a project quote that survives scope creep.
How Many Hours Can You Actually Bill?
Why freelancers bill far fewer hours than they work, how to measure your own billable ratio, and what it does to the rate you must charge.
A 10-Point Pricing Audit
A concrete checklist for finding the margin you are losing: fee drift, stale costs, unprofitable SKUs, missing floor prices and more.