Marketplace profit calculator

What this actually calculates

Most marketplace calculators stop at commission, which is the friendliest possible answer. This one subtracts everything that reaches your settlement, then models returns separately, because a return costs shipping in both directions and often the goods as well.

• GST collected on the sale is removed first - it is remitted, so it was never income
• Commission, fixed closing fee, shipping and collection or gateway fees
• GST at 18% on the fees themselves, treated as a cost only if you cannot claim input tax credit
• Ad spend attributed per unit, where your platform reports it that way
• Returns: shipping out and back, plus the goods if they come back unsellable

Why the fixed fees hurt small products most

Commission scales with price, so it hurts proportionally. The closing fee and the shipping charge do not scale at all, which is why a ₹300 product can be loss-making at the same commission rate that leaves a ₹3,000 product comfortable. Zero commission on cheap items - which both major marketplaces moved to in March 2026 - helps, but does not by itself make a low-ticket SKU profitable once a return lands.

Getting the return rate right

This is the input people guess at and it moves the answer more than any other. Take it from your own settlement reports rather than from a category average, and split it by product if the range is wide - apparel and electronics do not behave alike. If returns typically come back unsellable, untick the resale box and watch what happens to the number.

This does one SKU. Your catalogue has hundreds.

A calculator answers one question once. The reason it stays useful is that fee structures change - both major platforms revised rates in early 2026 - and the answer for a SKU quietly goes stale. filarity does the same calculation continuously across your whole catalogue by holding a cost price on every product and every fee and expense in the same period, then ranks products by profit rather than revenue.