Craft & Design
Packaging Cost Per Unit
Sum the real packaging stack — box, label, stickers, tissue, mailer, void fill, tape, ship label — into a single per-unit cost.
Packaging Cost Per Unit
Inputs
Results
Total packaging / unit
Sum of all items, scaled per unit used
$3.21
Product box / jar
$0.85/ea × 1.00
Product label (sheet)
$0.18/ea × 1.00
Thank-you stickers
$0.05/ea × 1.00
Care card / insert
$0.07/ea × 1.00
Tissue paper
$0.03/ea × 2.00
Kraft shipping mailer
$0.96/ea × 1.00
Void fill (crinkle)
$0.80/ea × 1.00
Packing tape (per ft)
$0.03/ea × 4.00
Shipping label stock
$0.10/ea × 1.00
How to use this
Packaging per unit is the silent killer of margin. Retail box + label + stickers + insert + tissue + mailer + tape + shipping label easily adds up to $2-4 per unit. If you're charging $20 retail with a 3× markup on materials, that's an extra 10-20% of price going to packaging alone.
Enter each packaging item at the price you actually paid, the quantity in the pack (stickers come 250/sheet, mailers 50/case), and how many you use per unit (2 tissue sheets, 4 ft of tape, etc.). Feed the total into the True Product COGS calculator.
Formula
cost_per_unit = (pack_cost ÷ pack_qty) × per_unit
Related calculators
True Product COGS (No-BS)
The real cost to make and sell one unit — materials with wastage, packaging, labor with burden, overhead, payment + platform fees, shipping absorbed, income + self-employment taxes. All in.
Wastage Buffer Reference
Industry-standard waste percentages for 20 common maker materials — feed into the True Product COGS calc for honest pricing.
Average Shipping Cost
Weighted average shipping across your real zones and services — with fair flat-rate suggestion and per-order profit/loss.
Formula
cost_per_unit = Σ((pack_cost ÷ pack_qty) × per_unit)