How to use the eCommerce Profit Calculator
- Enter the essentials. Type in your Selling price (per unit, before sales tax) and Product cost (your landed COGS). Set Units sold to scale the order totals, and pick your Currency (USD, GBP, EUR, AUD, NZD or CAD).
- Add your shipping. Put your real carrier cost under Shipping you pay, and whatever the buyer pays you under Shipping the buyer pays. Offering free shipping? Leave the buyer field at 0.
- Pick your platform. Tap Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Shopify or Custom / Other to pre-fill that platform's current fees. The note that appears tells you exactly what's included (and what isn't). Then edit any field. Your edits always win.
- Open Advanced settings for the full picture. Add Advertising as a % of revenue or a fixed amount per unit (Amazon PPC, Etsy Offsite Ads, Meta, promoted listings), plus Other costs like packaging, a Listing fee, and a Returns allowance. There's also a toggle for whether the marketplace fee applies to buyer-paid shipping, which it does on Amazon, eBay and Etsy.
- Read, then plan. Check your net profit, margin, ROI and breakeven. Use "What price do I need?" to solve for a target margin or profit, and "Compare two scenarios" to pin your current setup against a what-if (cheaper supplier, higher price, different platform). Hit Copy summary to save the numbers, or grab the embed code to put the calculator on your own site.
How ecommerce profit is calculated
The calculator works in three moves: add up your revenue, subtract your fees, subtract your costs.
Revenue = Selling price + Shipping the buyer pays
Total fees = Marketplace fee + Payment processing + Advertising + Listing fee + Returns reserve
Total costs = Product cost + Shipping you pay + Other costs
Net profit = Revenue − Total fees − Total costs
Where the marketplace fee is the platform's percentage applied to your revenue (or just the item price, if you untick the shipping toggle), with any per-order flat fee added and a minimum fee floor respected. Payment processing is its own percentage plus a flat amount per transaction.
From there the metrics fall out: Margin is net profit divided by revenue. ROI (return on cost) is net profit divided by what you actually laid out (product, shipping, other). Markup is the gap between price and product cost, measured against the cost. And breakeven is the selling price where net profit hits exactly zero. Margin and markup aren't the same number, by the way, and that trips up more sellers than you'd think. A 172% markup can still be a 23% margin.
A worked example
Open the tool, pick Amazon, and price a $29.99 product that costs you $11.00. You ship it yourself for $4.50, charge the buyer nothing for shipping, and run ads at 10% of revenue. Here's what the calculator returns:
Revenue $29.99
Amazon referral fee (15%) −$4.50
Advertising (10%) −$3.00
Product cost −$11.00
Shipping you pay −$4.50
Net profit $6.99
That's a 23.3% margin, a 45% return on cost, an effective fee rate of 25%, and a breakeven price of $20.67. Sell below $20.67 and you're paying customers to take the product. The point of the worked example isn't the exact figure, it's the gap: a $29.99 "sale" leaves you about seven bucks. Now add Amazon FBA fulfilment (the preset doesn't include it, you'd put that under Other costs) and watch it shrink again.
What's a good profit margin for ecommerce?
There's no single magic number, but most online stores aim for a net profit margin somewhere between 10% and 20%. The calculator flags anything under 10% as thin, and plenty of experienced sellers won't touch a product unless it clears 20% after every cost.
Your model matters more than any average. Dropshipping usually runs leaner, because you're buying single units at close to retail and paying for ads to make each sale. Private label and branded products tend to run higher, since you control the supply cost and the price. The two numbers worth separating: gross margin (your price minus the product cost) and net margin (what's left after shipping, fees, ads and overhead). Gross margin always looks healthier. Net margin is the one that pays your rent.
So rather than chasing a category benchmark, run your real costs through the tool and judge each product on its own result. A "boring" item with a 30% net margin beats a trendy one bleeding money on ads every time. If you want to dig into the specifics for one model, our guide to dropshipping profit margins breaks it down, and if you're hunting for better numbers from the start, here's how to find products with high profit margins.
Marketplace fees compared: Amazon vs eBay vs Etsy vs Shopify
Where you sell changes what you keep, sometimes by a lot. Here's how the four built-in platforms stack up:
Amazon: 15% referral fee (ranges 8–45% by category) with a $0.30 minimum per unit. Payment processing is bundled in. FBA fulfilment, storage and the $39.99/mo Professional plan aren't included, so add those separately.
eBay: 13.6% final value fee (2.5–15% by category) with payment processing bundled in, plus $0.40 per order ($0.30 if the order is $10 or under).
Etsy (US): 6.5% transaction fee, plus 3% + $0.25 payment processing, plus a $0.20 listing fee per sale. Offsite Ads (12–15%) only apply when they're triggered.
Shopify (Basic): no marketplace commission, since it's your own store. You pay 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction through Shopify Payments (2.5% + $0.30 on the Advanced plan), plus your monthly subscription and any apps.
(Fees current as of June 2026. Always confirm your exact rates in your own seller dashboard before pricing.)
Here's the part most sellers miss: the headline percentage isn't your real cost. What matters is your effective fee rate, the total slice that platforms and processors take once everything's stacked. Etsy's "low" 6.5% climbs fast once you add the 3% + $0.25 processing, the listing fee, and Offsite Ads. The calculator's effective-fee-rate tile shows you the true number on every sale.
One more detail worth knowing. On Amazon, eBay and Etsy, the percentage fee is charged on the item price plus the shipping the buyer pays, not just the item. So baking "free shipping" into a higher price quietly raises the base your fee is calculated on. The shipping toggle in the calculator models this exactly.
If your margin's getting squeezed, the levers are simple. Negotiate a lower product cost or hit the next order quantity tier with your supplier. Lift your price by a dollar and watch what it does to breakeven. Trim wasted ad spend. Cut return rates with clearer photos and accurate sizing. Each one ties back to a field you can change in the tool. And honestly, if you're brand new and doing a handful of orders, picking the lowest-fee platform matters less than selling where your buyers already are. You can always optimize fees once the volume's there. For more on the levers, here's how to negotiate better wholesale prices, ways to save on selling fees, and a deeper look at pricing strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions
The calculator has built-in fee presets for Amazon, eBay, Etsy and Shopify, plus a Custom / Other option for any other channel. Pick a platform and it pre-fills that platform's current selling and payment fees. You can then override any field, so it works for wholesale, your own website, or a marketplace that isn't listed.
No. The Amazon preset covers the 15% referral fee only. FBA fulfilment, storage, and the $39.99/month Professional plan aren't included, since they vary by product size and weight. Add your per-unit fulfilment cost under "Other costs" in Advanced settings to get an accurate net profit for an FBA listing.
Margin is net profit as a percentage of your selling price. Markup compares profit to your product cost instead. ROI (return on cost) is profit against everything you laid out: product, shipping and overhead. They answer different questions, which is why the calculator shows all three. A high markup can still hide a thin margin.
Many ecommerce sellers aim for a net margin of 20% or more, and the calculator flags anything under 10% as thin. Dropshipping often runs lower once ads are paid for; private label can run higher. There's no universal number, so enter your real costs and judge the product on its own result.
Include the marketplace or selling fee, payment processing, advertising, any listing fee, and shipping you cover yourself. The calculator also lets you set a returns allowance, a blended percentage to cover refunds. Leaving fees out is the top reason a product looks profitable but loses money once the payout lands.
No. The selling price is treated as the amount before sales tax, since tax is collected and remitted separately and isn't part of your margin. The tool calculates profit before any sales tax, VAT, GST or income tax. For your own obligations, check your local tax authority or speak to an accountant.
It works backwards. You enter a target margin or a target profit per unit, and the calculator holds your costs, fees and buyer-paid shipping fixed, then solves for the selling price that hits your goal. It also shows the maximum product cost you could pay and still keep your target margin at the current price.
No. There's no sign-up and nothing is sent to a server. Your numbers stay in your browser, so you can model real supplier costs and margins without sharing anything. Refreshing the page clears your inputs back to the defaults.
Yes. Scroll to "Add calculator to your site," copy the embed snippet, and paste it into any page or blog post. It resizes to fit, works on mobile, and links back to SaleHoo. It's the same free tool, just running on your site.
Completely free, with no account needed. Run as many products and scenarios as you like. SaleHoo built it as a free resource for sellers, the same way we built our free PayPal Calculator.
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