Wholesale Margin & Retail Price Stack Calculator
Most wholesale pricing is built backwards from a shelf price and a keystone rule of thumb. This builds it forward from landed cost, with the trade spend, deductions, freight, and royalty that actually come out of the line. Change one number and watch what it does to the whole stack.
Put in what you actually pay, not what you quoted.
Every field has a default so you can see the model working before you replace anything. Nothing is stored, nothing is sent anywhere, and there is no email gate — if the tool is useful, use it.
Royalty is charged on wholesale in most agreements. This model follows that convention.
Retailer margin is taken on the retail price. Distributor margin is taken on what the retailer pays. Stacking both is what quietly kills a direct-to-retail price model when a distributor gets added later.
These four are taken off your wholesale price, not the shelf price. They are the reason a “50 point” wholesale margin routinely lands in the thirties.
Directional model for planning conversations. It does not account for your overhead, financing cost, returns reserve, obsolescence, or minimum order economics. Confirm every rate against your own supplier agreement and retailer vendor guide before pricing against it.
The number that matters is the last one, not the first one.
The stack clears
There is room to absorb a bad quarter, a chargeback run, or a promotional ask without going underwater. This is where a program should start, not where it should end up.
Workable, no slack
Viable at volume, but a single unplanned deduction cycle or a freight increase moves it. Worth entering with an explicit exit condition written down in advance.
The program is the risk
At this level the account consumes working capital rather than generating it. Either a cost, a price, or a channel assumption has to change before the PO, not after.
The calculator scores one SKU. The Scorecard scores the business.
Pricing is one of six systems a retail launch depends on. Six systems, eighteen statements, about ten minutes.