Calculator

Small mistakes. Expensive year.

Enter last month's refunds, replacement costs, and the hours they burned. See the pace. Then test a change you actually control.

Blank stays blank. This is exposure and rework cost — not net profit.

Seller-Funded Refund Dollars

Only the dollars you funded. Use the four buckets from the refund guide, or one total if you cannot split them yet.

Period Label (Optional)

Display only, e.g. August 2026.

How are you entering refund dollars?

Dollar amountsDollar refund rate

The only rate accepted is seller-funded refund dollars divided by revenue. A percentage of orders refunded is a different thing and is never multiplied by revenue here.

Refund $ — Packing / count errors

Wrong item, short count, missing gift, label mismatch — floor process.

Refund $ — Claims inconsistent with available records

What the buyer reports does not match your pack record. Not all of it is preventable, and platforms decide disputes.

Refund $ — Product / delivery issues

Defect, damage in transit after a sound pack, expectation set on the stream.

Refund $ — Unresolved / other

Not yet resolved either way.

Refund $ — Total For The Month (Optional)

Use this only if you cannot split the causes. If you enter both, they have to agree.

Replacement And Shipping Costs

Extra money out on top of the refund itself. Not the original cost of the unit you already shipped.

Replacement Product Cost

Extra units shipped or written off. Not the original cost of goods on the first sale.

Seller-Paid Postage And Packaging On Replacements And Returns

Postage is already inside the refund dollars above. Tick this and postage is not counted a second time.

Rework Time

Tickets, re-picking, re-packing, relabelling and the customer-service time spent on those tickets.

Rework Hours This Month

Hours, not dollars.

Loaded Employment Cost Per Hour

Leave blank and the hours are shown unvalued rather than guessed at.

Monthly load at this pace

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Annual pace not available

Nothing has been entered yet, so there is nothing to total.

Not business net profit and not show contribution. Annual is ×12 at this pace, with volume, mix and refund behaviour held constant.

Refund Exposure This Month

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Additional Direct Expenses This Month

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Rework Hours This Month (Not Valued)

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A loaded employment cost per hour is needed before these hours can be money-valued.

Annual At This Pace (×12, Volume Unchanged)

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Volume, mix and refund behaviour held constant. A pace, not a forecast.

Figures Feeding These Totals

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Mark each figure Recorded or Estimated as you enter it.

Observations

Totals are incomplete until replacement, postage, or wage (as relevant) is entered or explicitly zeroed.

How This Is Calculated

Enter one calendar month. A field you leave empty is never counted as a zero — type 0 only when the real figure is zero. This tool estimates refund exposure, extra direct expenses and labor-capacity value. It is not business net profit and not show contribution.

Monthly load = refund exposure + additional direct expenses + labor-capacity value. Annual is that monthly figure ×12 at the same pace.

Method

Refund exposure = the cause parts added together, or the single total entered, or a dollar refund rate applied to revenue after discounts and cancellations before refunds.
A percentage of orders refunded is never multiplied by revenue. The only rate accepted is seller-funded refund dollars divided by that revenue.
If the cause parts and an entered total disagree by more than 50 cents, the refund figure is blocked until you say which one to use. Nothing is averaged.
Additional direct expenses = replacement product cost + seller-paid postage and packaging. When postage already sits inside the refund dollars it is not added a second time.
Labor-capacity value = rework hours × loaded employment cost per hour. Hours without an hourly cost are shown as hours, never money-valued by guesswork.
Monthly load = refund exposure + additional direct expenses + labor-capacity value, with any missing term left out and the total marked incomplete.
Annual pace = monthly load × 12 with volume, mix and refund behavior held constant. It is a pace, not a forecast.
A blank field is never treated as a zero. Type 0 only when the real figure is zero.
Scenario reductions are yours alone: no improvement rate is assumed, percentages over 100 are capped, and a dollar reduction larger than the line is capped at the line and said so.

What It Excludes

Business net profit, overhead, rent, software and salaried time not in the rework hours.
The original cost of the first shipped unit — only replacement product is counted here.
Sales tax collected for the authorities.
Platform fee stacks, which belong to the Live Show Profit Calculator.
Assumed dispute wins or any default preventable percentage.
Headcount reduction from recovered hours: recovered time is capacity, not a payroll cut.

Assumptions

Each refund is assigned to one cause bucket, even when more than one applies.
Customer-service time spent on those tickets counts as rework time.
A loaded employment cost per hour includes wages plus employment costs.
A month is used as the period.

Test A Change You Control

Enter your own reductions. Nothing is prefilled, and no improvement rate is assumed on your behalf.

Reduce Refund Dollars By

Reduce Replacement Product $ By

Reduce Postage And Packaging $ By

Reduce Rework Hours By

Claims inconsistent with available records are the category to be most careful with: platforms decide disputes, and not all of that pile is preventable.

Enter at least one reduction above to see an illustrated change against this baseline.

Your numbers. Ready to share.

Save your results, cost breakdown, and assumptions in one PDF.

Your monthly and annual refund and rework load
How the load splits across the four reader categories
The reductions you modelled, and what they assume

Only the summarised figures above are included. No buyer names or order identifiers are collected by this tool.

Email required. Your results stay on screen.

Read The Thinking Behind This Tool

If you want a second pair of eyes on a month like this, Explore SaleTrail →

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