Supplement Brand Profit Calculator

How the per-bottle supplement profit math works

The calculator builds up your per-order cost base in layers. Landed COGS + fulfillment = manufacturing cost per bottle + pick, pack and ship per order — the physical cost of getting one bottle to one door. On top of that sit two price-linked costs: payment processing, computed as your percentage rate times the bottle price plus the fixed per-transaction fee, and a refund allowance, computed as your refund rate times the bottle price.

First-order net profit = bottle price − landed COGS and fulfillment − payment fee − refund allowance − ad spend per new order (CAC). Repeat-order net profit is the identical calculation with CAC removed, because a reorder from an existing customer costs you no new acquisition spend. Net margin is the first-order profit as a percentage of price.

That two-line output is the core insight of the model. Supplement brands do not really earn on the sale; they earn on the second and third bottle. The calculator quantifies exactly how much of your economics depends on the customer coming back.

Where each input comes from

Every field in this profit calculator for supplement brands maps to a document you already have; none require accounting software.

• Manufacturing cost per bottle: your contract manufacturer’s unit price at your order quantity, including label application. Check whether bottles, caps, seals and scoops are billed separately — if so, add them.
• Pick, pack and ship: your 3PL’s per-order fee plus postage, or your own materials and postage if you fulfill in-house.
• Payment processing: your processor’s published rate — 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction is the typical card-processing benchmark the calculator prefills.
• Ad spend per new order (CAC): last month’s total ad spend ÷ new-customer orders in the same month. New customers only — blending in reorders flatters the number.
• Refund rate: refunded orders ÷ total orders over your last 90 days. Consumables are often refunded without a physical return, but the revenue still leaves.

Worked example: a $40 supplement at a $14 CAC

A supplement brand sells a single-bottle offer at $40.00. The contract manufacturer charges $7.00 per labeled bottle, the 3PL charges $5.50 to pick, pack and ship, payment processing runs 2.9% + $0.30, paid acquisition costs $14.00 per new order, and 3% of orders end in refunds.

Landed COGS + fulfillment = 7.00 + 5.50 = $12.50. The payment fee = 40.00 × 0.029 + 0.30 = $1.46. The refund allowance = 3% × 40.00 = $1.20. First-order net profit = 40.00 − 12.50 − 1.46 − 1.20 − 14.00 = $10.84, a 27.1% net margin. Repeat-order profit = 40.00 − 12.50 − 1.46 − 1.20 = $24.84 — more than double the first-order figure, from the same bottle at the same price.

Now stress it: if rising ad costs push CAC from $14 to $25, the first order drops to a $0.16 loss while the repeat order still earns $24.84. Whether that supplement brand is viable no longer depends on the ad account — it depends on what fraction of customers reorder before churning.

First-order loss, subscription offers, and when they are safe

Many supplement brands deliberately lose money on order one — a discounted trial or a subscribe-and-save hook — and recover it on reorders. A profit calculator for supplement brands lets you test that plan honestly: enter the discounted price and full CAC to size the first-order loss, then enter the subscription price with CAC at zero to see the repeat-order profit that must repay it. Dividing the loss by the repeat profit tells you how many renewals you need just to climb out of the hole.

The unsafe version of this strategy is running it without knowing those two numbers, funding an ever-larger cohort of first orders on the assumption that retention will show up. The math above is the guardrail: if one renewal cannot cover the first-order loss and your renewal data is thin, the offer is a bet, not a model.

The inventory side of a repeat-purchase business

Repeat-purchase economics create a stockout problem most product categories do not have. When a one-time-purchase brand runs out, it loses the sales during the gap; when a supplement brand runs out, subscribers miss a delivery and a slice of them cancel — the gap eats future months, not just this one. Reliable restocking is therefore part of the retention strategy, not a warehouse chore.

Manufacturing lead times for supplements also run long, since your manufacturer may be queuing raw ingredients and third-party testing before a run. Feed your sales rate and that full lead time into ShelfOwl’s reorder point and latest order date calculators per SKU. If you run several formulas and sizes, the paid ShelfOwl forecaster does it in bulk — one CSV of sales and stock in, the latest safe order date for every SKU out, with email reminders as deadlines approach. $29/mo, 14-day trial, no card needed.