Shipping Cost Calculator
Most sellers know their postage cost and their shipping charge. Very few have multiplied the gap between them by a year of orders.
Result
$0.00
Where the money goes
Saving keeps your figures on this device only — nothing is sent anywhere.
The three costs of a parcel
Postage is the cost people track. It is usually the largest of three, and rarely the whole story:
- Postage — the carrier's charge, the one on the label.
- Packaging — mailer or box, tape, filler, label stock, and the tissue paper and thank-you card that handmade sellers in particular treat as free because they were bought in bulk months ago. Bulk purchase changes the unit cost, not the fact that there is one.
- Handling — your own time. Five minutes per parcel at a modest valuation of your hour is real money, and it is the cost that grows fastest as you succeed.
The fee on shipping that surprises people
On several marketplaces the commission applies to the postage you collect, not just the item. Etsy's own documentation states the 6.5% transaction fee applies to the total cost of the item along with shipping when you charge the customer for it. So charging $6 postage does not put $6 towards your $7.40 label — it puts roughly $5.61 towards it, and the gap widens.
Free shipping is a price decision, not a shipping decision
Setting the charge to 0 above shows the true position: with free shipping every cost of the parcel moves into your margin. That can be entirely correct — free shipping demonstrably lifts conversion on many marketplaces, and Etsy has actively promoted it in search — but it is only correct if the item price absorbs the cost. The mistake is not offering free shipping. The mistake is offering it without moving the price.
What to do with the annual number
The yearly figure is the point of this tool. A $1.40 per-order shortfall feels like nothing and reads as a rounding error next to a $35 sale. At 80 orders a month it is roughly $1,344 a year — for many small sellers, the difference between a business that pays for itself and one that quietly does not. Three fixes, in order of how quickly they work:
- Raise the shipping charge to the real cost, remembering the commission taken on it.
- Raise the item price and offer free shipping, which usually converts better than the same total split out as postage.
- Cut the parcel itself — lighter packaging, a smaller box that drops a weight tier, or a carrier account with better rates at your volume.
Questions
Should I offer free shipping or charge for it?
Free shipping generally converts better, and on marketplaces that favour it in search there is a visibility argument too. But it is a pricing decision: the parcel still costs what it costs, so the item price has to carry it. Use this calculator with the charge set to 0 to see exactly how much the price needs to absorb before you make the switch.
Do marketplaces really charge fees on shipping?
Several do. Etsy's help documentation states its transaction fee applies to the total order including shipping and gift wrap when you charge the customer for those. This is why the calculator has a fee-on-shipping field — leaving it out makes a shipping charge look more effective than it is.
Should I really count my own handling time?
For an honest picture, yes. It is not a cash cost today, which is why it gets ignored, but it is the cost that determines whether growth is worth having. A business where each order takes ten unpaid minutes stops being viable at exactly the point it starts working, and you want to know that before you get there rather than after.
Related
Discount Impact Calculator
What a sale really costs — and how much extra volume it needs just to break even.
Freelance Tax Set-Aside Estimator
How much of each invoice to set aside so tax season is not a shock.
Reorder Point Calculator
When to reorder, how much safety stock, and the cash that sits in it.