Real Product Profit Calculator
Calculate how much you really earn on each sale, after VAT/sales tax, platform and payment gateway fees, shipping, packaging, advertising, and expected returns. Most sellers calculate margin on the sale price and forget two or three of these costs — this breakdown includes all of them.
How is it calculated?
Real revenue = sale price ÷ (1 + VAT/100), because VAT is collected for the tax authority, not revenue you keep. From that real revenue, subtract the fees (platform + gateway, as a % of the sale price), the fixed per-unit costs (product, shipping, packaging, other), the advertising spend per sale, and the expected cost of returns (return rate × what you lose on each one: product + shipping). The result is the net profit per unit. Margin is that profit divided by the sale price; markup is the same profit divided by the product cost — two different ways of measuring the same thing, and both are used in ecommerce. Max CPA is the profit you'd have left if you spent nothing on advertising: the most you can pay to acquire that sale without losing money. Min ROAS is the sale price divided by that max CPA — the minimum revenue you need to generate per unit spent on ads.
Examples
Product at 30 (VAT incl.), cost 10, platform fee 15% + gateway 1.5%, 5% returns
Net profit: 3.19 per sale (margin 10.64%). With 200 sales/month, about 638.68 in monthly profit. Max CPA: 5.19.
Product at 60, cost 22, platform fee 12% + gateway 2%, 8% returns
Net profit: 5.57 per sale (margin 9.28%). With 150 sales/month, about 835.02 in monthly profit. Max CPA: 10.57.
What goes into the real profit of a sale
With this per-unit profit you can set the minimum profitable price, calculate sales needed, or check your minimum ROAS and maximum CPA.
| Item | How it factors in |
|---|---|
| Price excluding sales tax | The tax isn't revenue you keep |
| Platform and gateway fees | Percentage of the sale price |
| Product, shipping, packaging and other | Per-unit costs |
| Advertising per sale | Average cost of acquiring that sale |
| Expected returns | Return rate × loss per return |