Free tool

Wholesale vs Amazon FBA margin calculator

Put in your retail price and unit cost. See what one unit really earns on Amazon after fees, ads and returns, and what the same unit earns sold by the case to a distributor or a store.

How the calculator works

The Amazon side subtracts, per unit: the referral fee (a percentage of the retail price), the FBA fulfilment fee (a fixed amount by size tier), advertising expressed as ACoS (ad spend divided by ad-attributed sales, applied across all units), the cost of returns, inbound freight and storage, and your landed unit cost.

The wholesale side starts from the wholesale price (a percentage of retail, 50% by default), takes off a distributor discount if one applies, then subtracts case-pack freight and unit cost. There is no referral fee, no advertising and, in practice, almost no returns.

The bottom card compares one wholesale purchase order with one month of Amazon sales and shows how many Amazon units it takes to earn the same profit as a single order. The break-even wholesale percentage tells you the lowest price you can accept from a buyer before the unit earns less than it does on Amazon.

Questions

What is a typical wholesale price?
Keystone pricing is the norm in US retail: the wholesale price is 50% of the retail price, so the retailer doubles it on the shelf. Specialty and gift retailers often accept 55–60% of retail; mass retail and distributors push for 40–45%.
Why is wholesale profit per unit sometimes higher than Amazon even at half the price?
Because Amazon takes a 15% referral fee, a per-unit fulfilment fee, advertising (a 25% ACoS means a quarter of revenue goes to ads) and returns. Add those up and a $30 product often nets less than $5. A wholesale sale at $15 with $0.90 freight and no ads can net more.
What does a distributor discount mean?
When a distributor sits between you and the retailer, it buys below the wholesale price, typically 20–30% off, and resells to stores. You get a lower unit price but one purchase order instead of dozens of small ones.
How large is a first wholesale order?
From the campaigns we run, a first order from an independent retailer is usually 1–5 cases and a regional distributor 10–40 cases. Reorders, not first orders, are where the channel pays off.
How do I find the distributors and retailers who would buy?
That is what WholesalePilot does: paste a product link and it finds the US companies that already stock similar products, emails them in your name and hands you the replies. The buyer preview is free.

Keep reading

Free to embed or cite with a link to this page. Read more in the wholesale playbook.