Landed Cost Calculator

Most landed cost spreadsheets fail in the same place: they total the shipment and divide by units. That works only if you imported one product. The moment a container holds several SKUs, the shared costs have to be allocated — and the basis you choose changes per-unit cost dramatically. Allocate freight by value and your expensive items absorb it. Allocate by volume and your bulky items do. Same shipment, same invoice total, very different answers about which product actually makes money.

Landed Cost Calculator handles the multi-SKU case properly. Enter each product with its price, quantity, weight, volume and its own duty rate, then set the allocation basis independently for each cost category — freight by weight because that is what carriers bill, insurance by value because that is what underwriters charge, brokerage per line because that is how it is invoiced. Duty is never allocated; each SKU pays its own rate on its own value.

It then adds the costs that most models omit entirely. The financing cost of money tied up between paying your supplier and selling the goods, which on long transits routinely exceeds the freight difference between carriers. The currency spread you actually transact at rather than the mid-market rate. And a damage allowance, so that the saleable units carry the cost of the ones that arrived broken. The output is true landed cost per unit, the selling price required for your target margin, and sensitivity tables showing how much of that margin belongs to the exchange rate rather than to your buying.

• Multi-SKU line entry: Any number of products, each with unit price, quantity, unit weight, unit volume and its own duty rate.
• Per-category allocation basis: Choose value, weight, volume, unit count or per-line for each shared cost independently — because different costs have different drivers.
• Duty never allocated: Each SKU pays its own rate on its own customs value, which is how customs actually assesses it.
• CIF or FOB duty base: Match the destination’s valuation rule, with freight and insurance folded into the duty base only where applicable.
• Currency conversion with spread: Apply the rate you can transact at rather than the mid-market rate, since the spread is a genuine cost.
• Transit financing cost: Cost of capital applied across payment terms, transit time and stock cover — the line most models omit.
• Damage and shrinkage allowance: Spread the cost of unsaleable units across the saleable ones.
• Recoverable VAT separated: Border cash requirement shown apart from true landed cost, so pricing is not distorted by a reclaimable tax.
• Margin and pricing: Required selling price derived from target gross margin, with markup shown alongside so the two are never confused.
• FX and freight sensitivity: Landed cost and margin across a range of exchange rates and freight costs, exposing where your profit actually sits.
• Allocation comparison: See how per-unit cost changes across all allocation bases at once, which is the fastest way to understand your cost structure.
• CSV export and client-side only: Download the per-SKU breakdown; nothing is uploaded.

1. Enter your SKUs. Unit price in supplier currency, quantity, unit weight and volume, and the duty rate for that product’s classification. Weight and volume matter because they drive freight allocation.
2. Set the currency. Enter the rate you can actually transact at, or the mid-market rate plus your provider’s spread.
3. Enter shipment-level costs. Freight, insurance, origin and destination charges, brokerage and delivery — the ones shared across all SKUs.
4. Choose an allocation basis for each. Freight by weight or volume, insurance by value, brokerage per line. Matching basis to driver is what makes the numbers trustworthy.
5. Add financing and damage. Payment terms, transit days, stock cover, cost of capital, and the proportion of goods that arrive unsaleable.
6. Read per-unit landed cost. Compare it across SKUs — the spread between them is usually wider than people expect.
7. Set your target margin. The required selling price follows, with markup shown so you can see the difference.
8. Check the sensitivity tables. If a five percent currency move erases your margin, the exchange rate is your real risk rather than your supplier price.

Example 1 — Allocation changes everything. A container holds 500 lightweight electronic accessories at 40 each and 200 bulky plastic storage units at 8 each. Allocating 4,000 of freight by value gives the accessories 4.55 per unit of freight against 0.46 for the storage units. Allocating by volume reverses it almost entirely — the storage units take the bulk of the cost because they take the bulk of the container. The second answer is the economically honest one, because volume is what filled the box.

Example 2 — Financing exceeds the freight saving. Goods worth 80,000 with 30 days prepayment, 35 days transit and 45 days stock cover means financing 110 days. At a 12 percent cost of capital that is 2,893 — larger than the 1,800 difference between two freight quotes being agonised over. Optimising payment terms would deliver more than switching carrier.

Example 3 — The damage adjustment. Ceramic tableware landing at 6.20 per unit with a 4 percent breakage rate means the saleable units actually cost 6.46. On a product sold at 9.99 that moves gross margin from 37.9 percent to 35.3 percent — the difference between hitting a margin target and missing it, entirely invisible if breakage is treated as an operational nuisance rather than a cost.

Example 4 — Where the margin really lives. A product bought in one currency and sold in another at a 32 percent gross margin looks comfortable. The FX sensitivity table shows that a 6 percent adverse move takes it to 26 percent and a 12 percent move to 19 percent. The buying was never the risk — the currency was, and that is an argument for forward cover rather than for renegotiating with the supplier.

• Know which SKU actually makes money: Averaging across a shipment hides loss-making lines subsidised by profitable ones.
• Allocate on the real cost driver: Freight is billed on weight and volume, so allocating it by value misstates every per-unit figure.
• Capture the costs models omit: Transit financing, currency spread and damage allowance are individually small and collectively decisive on thin margins.
• Price from cost, not backwards: Deriving selling price from target gross margin prevents the markup-versus-margin error that systematically underprices product.
• Separate cash from cost: Recoverable VAT belongs in your cash flow forecast, not in your landed cost.
• Find the real risk: Sensitivity analysis often shows the exchange rate matters more than the supplier negotiation.
• Defend your numbers: A per-SKU breakdown with a stated allocation basis survives scrutiny in a way a shipment average does not.
• Free and private: No sign-up, nothing uploaded, CSV export included.