Break-even price is the specific price at which an item's net revenue exactly covers everything already spent on it — sell below this price and the item is a loss, no matter how good the deal feels to move it.
Break-even selling price
breakEvenPrice = totalInvestment − deliveryRevenue + sellingFees
Example (illustrative): An item with $40 total investment (purchase plus prep costs), no delivery revenue, and $6 in expected marketplace fees has a break-even price of $40 − $0 + $6 = $46. Selling above $46 is a genuine profit; selling below it is a loss, even though a $40 sale might still feel like "getting most of my money back." This is a worked example — your own fee and cost inputs will differ.
Why break-even, not just cost, is the right floor
Using the raw purchase cost as your markdown floor ignores that fees still come out of whatever price you sell at — a sale exactly at cost is still a real loss once fees are subtracted. Break-even is the true floor; anything above it is a genuine, if possibly small, profit.
Using it for markdown decisions
- Before marking an item down, check the new price against its break-even — a markdown that lands above break-even is still a profitable sale, just a smaller one.
- A markdown below break-even is sometimes still the right call — freeing up cash and shelf space for a chronically stale item can be worth a small planned loss — but make that decision knowingly, not by accident.
- For items being evaluated under the not-worth-listing decision, a break-even price that's implausibly close to or above realistic market value is itself a signal the item may not be worth continuing to hold.
Where this lives in ListNestly
The Deal & Profit Calculator computes break-even selling price directly from the same total-investment, delivery-revenue, and selling-fees inputs shown above — useful both before a purchase and again later when deciding how far to mark an item down.