Promotion Profit Calculator
Enter your price and cost once. Compare every promotion type side by side by actual contribution profit and required sales uplift — not by how attractive the discount looks.
Comparison
| Promotion | Customer pays | Units | Eff. discount | Contribution profit | Margin | vs. baseline | Uplift needed |
|---|
How the comparison works
Shared model
Contribution profit = Revenue − Product cost − Payment fee − Shipping subsidy Required uplift = Baseline profit / Promo profit − 1 (only when promo profit > 0)
Worked example
$30 regular price, $8 unit cost, no fees — the deterministic example used throughout this site:
- Regular: pays $30, 1 unit, profit $22, margin 73.3%
- 20% off: pays $24, 1 unit, profit $16, margin 66.7%
- 2 for $50 bundle: pays $50, 2 units, profit $34, margin 68.0%
- Buy 2 get 1 free: pays $60, 3 units, profit $36, margin 60.0%
- BOGO: pays $30, 2 units, profit $14, margin 46.7%
Limitations
This does not model demand response — it tells you the profit per order and the break-even volume uplift, not whether customers will actually buy more.
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Frequently asked questions
Which promotion is "best"?
There is no single best promotion — it depends what you optimize for. Use the ranking selector to sort by profit/order, margin, discount size or required volume uplift.
Why is BOGO so much less profitable than it looks?
BOGO delivers 2 units for the price of 1, so product cost doubles while revenue stays flat — a 50% "off" headline often hides a much larger profit hit than an equivalent 50% single-unit discount.