One Fully-burdened contribution — what a design really leaves
Start from the unit contribution (price minus base, shipping, platform fees — the Basics/Intermediate number), then take the four business burdens down to the design. Defaults show Cora's hoodie: £9.23 unit → £2.66 loaded, £5.06 pre-ad.
What this design really leaves
Judge acquisition against the pre-ad figure, never revenue. A loaded figure may be negative — a real loss, a valid answer.
Write down what this design really leaves before you decide anything — it's the fully-burdened ledger in Print on Demand: Advanced →
Two CAC ceiling & break-even ROAS — before a pound goes to ads
The most you may pay to win a buyer and still keep the profit you require — judged on loaded pre-ad contribution, ad counted once. Defaults show Cora's premium: pre-ad £22.83, keep £12 → ceiling £10.83, break-even ROAS ~3.0×.
for Cora's organic premium this equals its loaded contribution — ads are £0. The coupon and league instruments below are seeded with that same £22.83 as their default; edit each freely for another design.
Before a pound goes to ads
A "3×" the dashboard cheers is break-even here — you need well above it to bank the profit. A ceiling of £0 or less means the product can't be won by paid acquisition at that profit.
Set your CAC cap before a pound goes to ads — it's the scaling gate in Print on Demand: Advanced →
Three The coupon check — what a discount truly costs
A % coupon comes off the price, but the % platform fee falls with it, so the real hit is discount × (1 − fee%), not the sticker discount. Defaults: 15% off the £68 premium at 13% fee → true hit £8.87 (not £10.20).
What the coupon truly costs
Write your discount stop-rule now, before the temptation — it's the price discipline in Print on Demand: Advanced →
Four League-table row — total and per hour
Rank the catalogue by the resource that binds you. Total = loaded × units; per hour = total ÷ the owner-hours the design ate (diffuse time included). Defaults show the premium: £22.83 × 13 over 5 hours → £297 total, ~£59/hour.
Total and per hour
If capacity binds you, rank by per hour — a thin-margin, hands-free design can out-rank a fat one that eats your week.
Rank one design by the hour today — it's the league table in Print on Demand: Advanced →
How to read it Four instruments, one decision
Most print-on-demand sellers run on gross revenue and gut feel, and it hides the one thing that matters: which designs actually make money once every cost is counted, and where the next pound and the next hour should go. These four instruments answer that, in order.
Loaded (fully-burdened) contribution tells you what a design really leaves once ads, returns, overhead and an honest cost for your own time come out — not the flattering sticker margin. It keeps the pre-ad figure separate, because that is the only number a customer-acquisition cost should ever be judged against. The CAC ceiling and break-even ROAS tell you the most you can pay to win a buyer before an ad turns a sale into a loss — and expose why a "3× return on ad spend" the dashboard cheers can still be a bleed on a thin product. The coupon check shows a discount's true cost: because the platform's percentage fee falls with the price, the real hit is the discount times one-minus-the-fee-rate, not the sticker figure. And contribution per owner-hour ranks your catalogue by the resource you are actually short of — so a thin-margin, hands-free design can rightly out-rank a fat one that eats your week.
Every figure is illustrative and yours to change — type in your own numbers and the sheet recalculates live, entirely in your browser, nothing stored or sent. It is checked against the same test cases as the free downloadable spreadsheet, so the tool and the workbook agree on every figure they share. Together they turn allocation from a feeling into a decision you can defend — the whole method of Print on Demand — Advanced.
It is the instrument at the heart of Print on Demand — Advanced, which shows a working seller how to put money where the margin is and make the business durable.
See the Print on Demand series →