Wholesale Price Calculator
Work out a wholesale price from unit cost and target margin, then the distributor and retail prices down the chain, with the margin at each step. Use a target margin or a keystone multiplier, or start from the retail price and work back to the most you can pay. Margin is not markup, so both are shown.
Your numbers
What one unit costs you, delivered: product, packaging, freight in, duty.
Margin is a share of the selling price. A multiplier is a factor on cost. They are not the same number.
Adds one more step to the chain.
Starts at keystone (double the cost, a 50% margin), a convention rather than a rule. Change it to what your retailers ask for.
Your wholesale price
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- Retail price
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- You
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- Retailer
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- Retail price ÷ unit cost
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Margin is not markup: a 50% margin is a 100% markup, and a 30% margin is a 42.9% markup.
The margins and multipliers are starting values you can change, not industry benchmarks. Each trade, and each customer, has its own.
The calculation runs in your browser and ParrotNotes does not store your numbers. They sit in the page address so you can bookmark or share the result.
From unit cost to retail price
Start from what one unit costs you, delivered: product, packaging, freight in and duty. Each step of the chain then adds its own margin, and its cost is the price of the step before it. Price = cost ÷ (1 − margin), or cost × multiplier.
Example with a distributor: a $10 unit at your 50% margin is a $20 wholesale price. The distributor pays $20 and sells at a 30% margin for $28.57. The retailer pays $28.57 and sells at a 50% margin for $57.14. The end customer pays 5.71 times your unit cost, and you keep $10 of it.
Words vary by trade. On this page your wholesale price is what you charge the next business in the chain. If a distributor sits in the middle, the price the retailer pays is shown as the distributor's price; some people call that the wholesale price instead. Say which one you mean when you quote.
From retail price back to the most you can pay
If the market sets the retail price, run the chain backwards. Cost = price × (1 − margin) at each step, from the retailer back to you. What is left at the end is your limit: the most you can pay per unit and still leave everyone their margin.
With a $100 retail price, a 50% retailer margin, a 30% distributor margin and your own 50%: the retailer pays $50, the distributor pays $35, and you can pay at most $17.50. If your landed unit cost is above that, one of the margins or the retail price has to change.
Margin is not markup
Margin is the profit as a share of the price; markup is the profit as a share of the cost. The same price gives two different percentages, and the markup is always the larger one. The same point in numbers: a 30% margin is a 42.9% markup and a multiplier of 1.43; 40% is 66.7% and 1.67; 50% is 100% and 2; 60% is 150% and 2.5.
Retailers and distributors usually tell you the margin they need, so ask which one they mean. The calculator accepts a target margin or a multiplier for every step and always shows both margin and markup in the result.
The multipliers are starting values
Keystone, double the cost at retail, is the one named convention here: RepSpark calls it a baseline and Shopify a shortcut. The 50% for your own margin and the 30% for a distributor are only example values so the page starts with a result. We found no reliable published figure for distributor margins across trades, so we do not quote one. Change every field to what your own customers ask for.
How this differs from the margin calculator
The margin calculator looks at one sale: one cost, one price, one margin. This page looks at the whole price chain: you, the distributor and the retailer, each on their own margin, from cost to retail and back. Once the prices are set, the price list template turns them into a sheet you can send to customers.
For manufacturers' reps and distributors
When a buyer pushes for a better price, the chain shows what it does further down: a dollar off at your step changes the retailer's cost, not just your margin. Work out the chain before the call, so you know the lowest price that still works for everyone in it, and note what the buyer asked for while the conversation is fresh.
Sources, each read on 2026-11-02. The margin, markup and chain formulas are plain arithmetic; every margin and multiplier is an input you can change:
- Shopify Staff, What Is Keystone Pricing? (10 September 2026): retail price at double the cost, 100% markup, about 50% gross margin, and its limits
- RepSpark, Keystone pricing explained: wholesale price, MSRP and the keystone baseline
Related: the margin calculator for the margin on one sale and what a discount does to it, and the price list template to send the prices to your customers.
More for distributor and channel sales: Distributor sales, Channel sales, Industrial distributor.
The price chain sets up the pricing talk
The chain shows the room you have at each step; the talk with the buyer decides where the price lands. Record it in ParrotNotes and you get a transcript, a summary and the action items, so the agreed terms are written down.
Get Started FreeRelated tools
- Margin and Markup CalculatorWork out margin, markup and selling price from cost, convert markup to margin, and see what a discount does to your margin before you quote.Open the tool
- Price List TemplateBuild a printable price list with sections, item codes, unit prices and volume tiers, then print it, save it as a PDF or download a CSV.Open the tool
- COGS CalculatorWork out cost of goods sold from beginning inventory, purchases and ending inventory, with gross profit, gross margin and inventory turnover.Open the tool