Brand Deals, Sponsorship & Business
Cost of goods sold
Also called: COGS, unit cost
Add up everything a single unit costs before you have made a penny on it. The blank product, printing, packaging, postage, the payment processor's cut and the platform's. Selling price minus that figure is your gross margin, and it decides whether merch is a business or a hobby with a storage problem. Overheads sit outside it, so design time, advertising and software come off afterwards.
The usual error is reading a payout as profit. The second is forgetting the units that never sell at all. That is why print on demand carries a high cost per unit and no stock risk, while a bulk order does the reverse and eats your cash up front.