Money
Pricing, costs, cash flow, bookkeeping, taxes and funding: the numbers that decide whether an idea runs, for owners who aren’t accountants.
Price and costs are where ideas usually break, and the fault shows in arithmetic. A product that sells for $40 and costs $28 to make and ship leaves $12; with $600 a month in fixed costs, that’s 50 sales before the business pays you a dollar. Self-employment tax is 15.3% on top of income tax, and for the rest the IRS and an accountant have the last word.
How to price a product sets a first price that covers every cost of a sale, and how to calculate your break-even point works that sum with a product and a service example, your own pay counted. When sales come in and nothing is left, what to check first when a business isn’t making money goes through the margin, fixed costs, what a customer costs to win, demand and your hours, in that order.
Guides in this section 3
6-1
How to calculate your break-even point, with examples
The break-even formula worked at side-hustle scale: a product and a service example, your own pay counted, and the three levers that bring the number down.
6-2
How to price a product: cost, margin and what buyers pay
Set a first price that covers every cost of a sale, card fees and your time included, and sits where buyers will pay, with worked examples and the markup trap.
6-3
Why is my business not making money? What to check first
An ordered check for a business that sells but keeps nothing: profit or cash, the margin on each sale, fixed costs, customers, demand and your hours.
In this section
- Pricing
- Margins and unit economics
- Startup costs
- Break-even
- Cash flow
- Bookkeeping
- Invoicing and getting paid
- Self-employment taxes
- Paying yourself
- Small business loans and grants
- Crowdfunding