Will this product still make money after returns and ads?
A magnetic car phone mount is priced at $29.99 in this Amazon US fixture. The calculator separates profit per unit from the cash needed to place the first order.
What goes into one sale
| Selling price | $29.99 |
|---|---|
| Return rate | 6% |
| Referral fee rate | 15% |
| Fulfillment fee | $4.25 |
| Landed product cost | $7.80 |
| Advertising ACOS | 14% |
| Other variable cost | $0.55 |
Source: public input fixture. Return loss is $8.00 for each returned unit.
How $6.68 is calculated
$28.1906 realized revenue after returns - $4.22859 referral fee - $4.25 fulfillment - $7.80 landed cost - $0.48 expected return loss - $4.1986 ads - $0.55 other = $6.68341 contribution
The 22.3% contribution margin divides $6.68341 by the $29.99 list price. This is a contribution model, not a net-profit or Amazon settlement statement.
Stress the assumptions before ordering
Each downside changes one assumption while holding the others fixed. Both remain positive in this fixture, but the lower contribution leaves less room for costs the model has not captured. The two downside cases are not a combined worst case.
Profit is not first-order cash
1,000 units x $7.80 landed cost = $7,800 purchase order
$7,800 + $1,800 tooling + $450 setup + $2,500 working-capital buffer = $12,550
The 30% deposit is $2,340 and the pre-shipment balance is $5,460. These are payment stages within the $7,800 purchase order, not extra costs to add again.
Reproduce the result
python skills/amazon-unit-economics-cashflow/scripts/unit_economics.py \
examples/magnetic-car-phone-mount/input/unit-economics-assumptions.json \
--output unit-economics.json --prettyCompare with the checked output JSON. The script uses Python 3.10+ and no third-party packages.
Take this into a real product decision
Start with review evidence to identify product pain, then supply your own price, fees, returns, ad spend, and supplier terms to the unit-economics Skill. The review repository's synthetic case is a separate product; its numbers are not inputs to this mount example.
npx skills add PDBen-Auto/amazon-product-research-agent-skills --skill amazon-unit-economics-cashflowBefore inventory commitment, confirm current Amazon fees, a real supplier quote, sample performance, and design-rights review. The full decision example keeps those gates open.