The Real Cost Method

Why this page exists

A calculator that shows you a number without showing its work is asking for blind trust. We'd rather you could check our math - or catch us when a vendor's pricing has changed and we haven't updated it yet. Every result on every calculator links back to this page, and every formula below is the actual code running behind the tool, not a marketing simplification of it.

Core principles behind every calculator

• Pricing is checked against each vendor's public pricing page at the time a calculator is built or updated, never estimated or guessed. When a plan's pricing structure doesn't fit neatly into a simple model - HubSpot's onboarding fees, ActiveCampaign's pricing-by-contacts rather than by seat - we say so explicitly next to the number rather than smoothing it over.
• We tell you when a link is an affiliate link, right next to the link itself, not just in a footer disclosure. Where no affiliate relationship exists, the calculator says that too, rather than silently omitting a CTA. See our full affiliate disclosure.
• Every calculator's inputs are shareable. The "Share this result" button on each tool copies a link that encodes your exact inputs in the URL - opening that link reproduces your result for anyone, with no account or re-entry required.
• Prices change. We do our best to keep this page and each calculator current, but every result includes a reminder to confirm current pricing directly with the provider before making a purchasing decision. Found something out of date? let us know and we'll fix it.

Funnel Cost Calculator

Used on the funnel cost calculator.

We add up the monthly cost you enter across seven categories - website/hosting, landing page builder, email software, CRM, automation, course platform, and other tools - for your current monthly total, then multiply by 12 for the annual total.

The "consolidated" comparison figure uses a fixed reference point of $17/month - the approximate cost of Systeme.io's Startup plan, which bundles the equivalent functionality into one subscription. Potential annual savings is your current annual total minus the consolidated annual cost ($17 × 12), floored at zero so the tool never shows a negative "savings."

Email Marketing Cost Calculator

Used on the email marketing cost calculator.

Your current annual cost is simply your entered monthly cost × 12. The estimated alternative cost looks up your contact count against a fixed set of tiers modeled on Systeme.io's pricing (2,000 contacts free, 5,000 for $17/mo, 10,000 for $47/mo, above that $97/mo), then annualizes that tier's monthly price the same way. Savings is the difference between the two annual figures.

Affiliate Income Calculator

Used on the affiliate income calculator.

This one is a straight funnel-math chain, with no vendor pricing data involved:

• Estimated clicks = monthly traffic × click-through rate
• Estimated conversions = estimated clicks × conversion rate
• Estimated monthly income = estimated conversions × average commission
• Estimated annual income = estimated monthly income × 12

These are illustrative, not predictive - real affiliate income depends heavily on traffic quality and offer fit in ways a four-input calculator can't capture. We say this directly on the tool itself, not just here.

Online Business Cost Calculator

Used on the online business cost calculator.

The simplest tool on the site: we add your entered monthly cost across seven categories (hosting, domain, email marketing, funnel builder, course platform, scheduling, other tools) for a monthly total, then multiply by 12 for the annual total. No comparison figure, no assumptions beyond the numbers you enter.

CRM Cost Calculator

Used on the CRM cost calculator.

This is the most involved calculation on the site, comparing HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM, ActiveCampaign, and Freshsales. For each CRM:

1. Your selected team size is matched against that vendor's tier brackets (1-5, 6-15, 16-40, 41+ users) to find the applicable plan and its per-seat price.
2. Total monthly cost = per-seat price × team size - except ActiveCampaign, which prices by contact-list size rather than seats, so its tiers are shown as a flat monthly cost regardless of your team size input. This is the single most common way a generic "per-seat" CRM calculator misrepresents ActiveCampaign, and we specifically built around it rather than forcing it into the same formula as the other four.
3. Feature match = the share of your selected features (automation, email marketing, advanced reporting, integrations/API, sales pipeline, priority support) that vendor's plan actually includes.
4. Ranking: results are sorted first by whether the per-seat (or flat) price fits your selected budget ceiling, then by feature match percentage, then by total price - so the top result is always a genuine fit for your stated budget, not just the cheapest option regardless of what you said you needed.

Two vendors - Zoho and Freshsales - are shown with pricing but no "Try it" button, because neither currently has a public affiliate program we could join. We'd rather show you the honest comparison and lose the commission than quietly drop a competitively priced option from the results.

Profit Margin Calculator

Used on the profit margin calculator.

Gross profit is revenue minus COGS (cost of goods/services sold); gross margin is gross profit divided by revenue. If you turn on software costs, net profit subtracts your monthly software spend from gross profit too, and net margin is net profit divided by revenue. "Margin lost to software" is the percentage-point gap between gross and net margin, floored at zero so the tool never shows a negative loss.

No vendor pricing data is involved - every figure comes entirely from the revenue, COGS, and software-cost numbers you enter.

Gross Profit Margin Calculator

Used on the gross profit margin calculator.

This is the simplest calculator on the site: gross profit is revenue minus COGS (cost of goods sold), and gross margin is gross profit divided by revenue, shown as a percentage. It intentionally stops there - it doesn't account for overhead, salaries, or software costs the way the full Profit Margin Calculator does.

No vendor pricing data is involved - every figure comes entirely from the revenue and COGS numbers you enter.

Shopify Profit Margin Calculator

Used on the Shopify profit margin calculator.

Per-unit margin is sale price minus cost of goods, minus the payment processing fee (sale price × processing rate, plus a flat per-transaction fee), minus any absorbed shipping cost. Fixed costs - your Shopify plan and app subscriptions - are amortized per unit by dividing their monthly total by your estimated monthly units sold, then subtracted from per-unit margin to get the true margin after fixed costs.

Data source: Shopify's published pricing and Shopify Payments rate pages. Last reviewed: September 2026. Processing rates and plan prices are editable defaults, not guarantees - Shopify's own rates vary by plan, country, and whether Shopify Payments or a third-party gateway is used.

eBay Fee Calculator

Used on the eBay fee calculator.

Final value fee = sale price × your category's fee percentage. Promoted listing fee = sale price × your ad rate (or $0 if you don't promote the listing). eBay fees total is the sum of both. Net profit = sale price + shipping charged to the buyer − item cost − shipping cost to you − eBay fees total. Take-home % = net profit ÷ sale price.

This is a deliberately simplified model: it applies your category fee to the sale price only, not to shipping charged to the buyer (which eBay's real invoice typically includes in the fee base), and it doesn't add eBay's small flat per-order fee - so it runs slightly optimistic versus your real payout in most cases.

eBay fee percentages change and vary by seller level, store subscription, and category - this calculator uses commonly published defaults as of September 2026, editable by the user, not live-synced to eBay's fee schedule.

Etsy Fee Calculator

Used on the Etsy fee calculator.

Listing fee = $0.20 × the number of listing fees you enter. Transaction fee = 6.5% × (item price + shipping charged), and is not charged on US sales tax. Payment processing = 3% × (item price + shipping + assumed buyer sales tax) + $0.25. Offsite Ads fee = 15% (12% once trailing-12-month sales reach $10,000) × (item price + shipping), capped at $100 per sale, and $0 unless you mark the sale as an Offsite Ads order. Net profit = item price + shipping charged − item cost − shipping cost to you − Etsy fees total. Take-home % = net profit ÷ (item price + shipping charged). Digital items set shipping to zero and pay the same fees.

Data source: Etsy's Fees & Payments Policy, Etsy Payments Policy and Advertising & Marketing Policy, for US sellers. Last reviewed: October 2026. Not modelled: Etsy Ads (pay-per-click), currency conversion, Etsy Plus, Share & Save, set-up fees, instant-transfer fees, discount effects on the fee base, and refunds.

Credit Card Processing Fee Calculator

Used on the credit card processing fee calculator.

Total monthly cost = (monthly volume × your rate) + (transaction count × your per-transaction fee) + a monthly subscription fee if you're on a subscription model. Transaction count is estimated as monthly volume divided by average transaction size. The comparison table applies this same formula to your two other pricing models using typical published rates, since we don't know your actual rate under a model you aren't using.

Data source: commonly published rate ranges for flat-rate, interchange-plus, and subscription processors. Last reviewed: September 2026. Real rates vary by processor, industry, card-present vs. card-not-present transactions, and negotiated terms - this is a directional comparison tool, not a quote.

Course Platform Fee Calculator

Used on the course platform fee calculator.

Total monthly cost = plan fee + (monthly revenue × the platform's fee percentage) + standard card processing (~2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, with transaction count estimated as revenue divided by your average sale price). Kajabi and Thinkific's fee percentages reflect the surcharge that applies when using your own Stripe account instead of the platform's built-in processor, since that's the scenario most likely to produce a real, uncapped surprise fee - using the platform's own processor instead avoids it, at the cost of tying your payouts to that platform.

Data source: Kajabi, Teachable, Thinkific, and Systeme.io's published pricing pages. Last reviewed: September 2026. Always confirm current pricing directly with each provider before switching platforms.

SaaS Overlap Calculator

Used on the SaaS overlap calculator.

For each of four jobs (funnel/landing pages, email marketing, CRM, course/membership hosting), you can enter a cost for your main tool and, separately, a cost for a second tool also doing that job. When both are non-zero for a job, we take the smaller of the two as that job's redundant monthly spend - a deliberately conservative floor, since one tool already covers the job either way and we don't assume which one you'd keep. Redundant amounts are summed across all four jobs for the monthly total, then multiplied by 12 for the annual total.

Data source: none - totals are computed entirely from the costs you enter. Last reviewed: September 2026.

AI Tool Overlap Calculator

Used on the AI tool overlap calculator.

Same formula as the SaaS Overlap Calculator, applied to AI subscriptions specifically. For each of four jobs (writing/content, general chatbot, coding assistant, image/design), you can enter a cost for your main tool and, separately, a cost for a second tool also doing that job. When both are non-zero for a job, we take the smaller of the two as that job's redundant monthly spend. Redundant amounts are summed across all four jobs for the monthly total, then multiplied by 12 for the annual total.

Data source: none - totals are computed entirely from the costs you enter. Last reviewed: September 2026.

Corrections and feedback

If you spot a stale price, a broken calculation, or a vendor whose plans have changed since we last checked, tell us - these tools are only as useful as the numbers behind them are accurate.