When to use this calculator
Whenever a product passes through more than one party between manufacturer and end customer — importers, brokers, agents, master distributors, regional distributors, retailers, marketplaces.
Best used for
- Modeling distribution channel pricing.
- Negotiating with intermediaries who stack commissions.
- Showing partners the cumulative effect of "small" markups.
- Comparing direct vs multi-tier go-to-market scenarios.
Inputs explained
Base price is the cost from the original source (factory or supplier). Each layer adds either a percentage markup, a fixed fee, or both. Layer type switches which fields apply.
Outputs explained
Final price is what the end customer pays after every layer. Total increase and overall % show how much value middlemen added. The breakdown shows what each layer contributed.
Worked example
Base price $10. Importer +15% → $11.50. Distributor +20% → $13.80. Retailer +40% + $2 fixed → $21.32. End customer pays +113% over base, even though no single party charged more than 40%.
Common mistakes
- Adding all percentages together (50%) instead of compounding them.
- Forgetting fixed per-unit fees that don't scale with price.
- Quoting "wholesale margin" without modeling downstream layers.
- Ignoring currency drift between layers in cross-border chains.