Running a business
How to price your products without guessing
Price from cost, not from feel. Your price should start at materials plus labor plus overhead, multiplied by a margin target — and if that number doesn’t cover ads, shipping, and returns, it’s wrong. Most beginners under-price by 30% because they price from fear, and then quit because they’re not making money.
The formula that actually works
- 01
Add up the true cost per unit: materials, packaging, shipping, payment fees, and your time.
- 02
Pick a margin by product type — physical goods can usually carry 3–5x cost.
- 03
Sanity-check against the market: your price should sit within what buyers expect, not above it for no reason.
- 04
Test a raise every few batches — most stores discover they can charge more than they feared.
Margin by product type
| Type | Typical price | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Physical products | 3–5x cost | Covers freight, returns, ads |
| Print on demand | 3–5x base cost | Thin margins need volume |
| Services | 3x cost | Your time is the product |
| Digital products | 10x+ cost | Near-zero marginal cost |
| Subscriptions | 30–40% margin | Retention does the work |
The three pricing mistakes
Pricing from what competitors charge — they might be losing money on purpose.
Forgetting shipping, returns, and ad costs in the per-unit math.
Never raising prices, then wondering why growth stalls.
The hard truth
If you can’t raise prices without losing every customer, you don’t have a pricing problem — you have a positioning problem.
How to test a price
Raise by 10–15%, hold it for two weeks, and watch two numbers: conversion and margin. If conversion barely moves, the price was never the problem. If margin jumps and orders hold, raise again. Price testing is a superpower most small stores never use.
You don’t have a pricing problem. You have a positioning problem.
Next step
Get your store live with Clymb
Tell Clymb what you’re building and the store, brand, and social content get built and deployed — not a template, an actual business.