Getting Started
Your first pricing model in 60 seconds.
Pick a template, add your SKUs, set two margins, and read your shelf price. This is the fastest path from "what would this cost at retail?" to an answer you can defend.
Pick a template, add your SKUs, set two margins, and read your shelf price. This is the fastest path from "what would this cost at retail?" to an answer you can defend.
Alculator turns an FOB price into a distributor sell-in, a shelf price, and a gross-profit number at every tier — live, as you type. This tutorial walks the shortest path: one template, a few SKUs, two margins, and a result you can put in front of a distributor.
Open the calculator, pick a category template, type your SKU names and FOB prices into the rows, and set your distributor and retailer margins. The sell-in, shelf price, and GP columns fill themselves in as you type. No account is needed for up to 8 SKUs.
Nothing but a browser. The calculator at alculator.io/calculator runs entirely on the page, works without an account for up to 8 SKUs, and never asks for a card. Two numbers make the model real, so have them handy:
If you're not sure what FOB means or where margins come from, the theory lives in FOB Pricing Explained and Distributor Margins. This tutorial stays on the "which button" level.
On your first visit the calculator asks you to choose a category: Beer, Wine, Spirits, Hemp, Soda & Energy, or Blank. Click the one closest to what you sell.
A template is a head start, not a commitment. Each one pre-fills the margin defaults, pack formats, and a few sample SKUs typical for that category, so you see a working model immediately — then you overwrite the samples with your own products. Blank starts empty for products that don't fit a category. The full rundown of what each template assumes is in Category Templates.
Each row in the table is one SKU. Work left to right:
The math recalculates the moment you finish a field — there is no Calculate button anywhere. Add rows for as many SKUs as you need (up to 8 before the calculator asks you to create a free account). Freight, excise, and depletion fields are there when you're ready to model true landed cost, and every field is covered in SKU Rows and FOB to Landed Cost.
Two percentages drive the whole model: the distributor margin and the retailer margin. Set them once and every SKU uses them; any SKU can override them individually when one product carries different terms.
Alculator uses gross margin on selling price — the industry convention. At a 32.5% distributor margin, a case with a $28.00 landed cost sells in at $28.00 ÷ (1 − 0.325) = $41.48, not $28.00 × 1.325. If you think in markup, the difference matters; see Markup to Margin.
How overrides, defaults, and the margin math interact is the subject of Setting Distributor & Retailer Margins.
With FOB and margins in place, each row now shows the full three-tier story. A worked example at a 32.5% distributor margin and 28.0% retail margin:
| Column | Example | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| FOB / case | $28.00 | What the supplier charges |
| Dist. GP / case | $13.48 | The distributor's gross profit on every case |
| Shelf price | $9.60 | What the consumer pays per pack (6×4 format) |
If a number looks wrong, it usually is — usefully so. A shelf price above your market's expectation means the FOB or a margin has to give; that's the conversation the calculator exists to arm you for. When you'd rather start from the shelf price and work backwards, flip the SKU to REV mode — see REV Mode.
Everything so far works anonymously. Two things need a free account:
Exporting starts on the free plan with CSV; other formats join on paid plans. What lands in each file — and which plan includes which format — is covered in Exporting, with the current plan lineup on the pricing page.
You have a working model. From here:
Open the calculator, pick a template, and put your own numbers in it.
Open the Calculator →