How do I work out the cost of each item in a pallet or storage unit?

Add up everything the lot cost you — the price, the buyer’s premium, tax, fuel and shipping — and spread it over what came out of it in proportion to what each thing will sell for. A coat you will sell for $120 then carries twelve times the cost of a $10 box of cables. That is the method this calculator uses by default.

Should I split by resale value or evenly per piece?

By value, almost always. An even split prices a designer bag and a chipped mug at the same cost, so the bag looks like a windfall and the mug looks like a loss when neither is true. Split by piece only when everything in the lot is alike — a pallet of the same phone case, a box of identical books.

Does the buyer’s premium count as part of the cost?

Yes. A 15% buyer’s premium on a $500 winning bid is $75 you paid for those goods, so it belongs in their cost exactly as the bid does. So do sales tax on the purchase and what it cost to get the lot home.

What if I do not know what everything is worth yet?

Use your best guess and change it as you go — the split only needs the values relative to each other. If you cannot guess at all, split by piece for now. The honest version is to keep the lot’s cost unpriced until you have finished unpacking, then spread it once over everything, including what you already sold.

What does “cost per $1 of resale value” mean?

It is what you paid for the lot divided by what you expect it to sell for. At 25¢ you are paying a quarter for every dollar of goods, which leaves room for fees, postage and the pieces that never sell. A common rule of thumb is to pay no more than about a third of what the lot will sell for.

Pallet and mixed-lot cost splitter

Paid one price for a pile of stuff? List what came out of it and roughly what each thing will sell for. The calculator spreads the whole cost over the items, to the cent, so every piece has a real cost basis.

What the lot cost

Price paid

The winning bid or the price you agreed.

Buyer’s premium

Auction houses add 10–20%.

Sales tax on the purchase

Getting it home

Fuel, a trailer, shipping, a dump fee.

How to split it

Spread the cost

By resale value Evenly per piece

By value gives a $120 jacket twelve times the cost of a $10 box. Evenly only suits a lot of things that are all alike.

What came out of it

The lot cost you

—

Price paid: —
Buyer’s premium: —
Sales tax: —
Getting it home: —
Total cost: —
Expected resale value: —
Expected profit, before selling fees: —

You paid

—

for every $1 of resale value

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How it is worked out

First the lot’s whole cost is added up: the price, the buyer’s premium on it, sales tax on both, and what it cost to get the goods home. That total is what the items have to carry between them, and it is the figure your cost of goods should add up to at tax time.

Then it is spread over the rows. By resale value, each row takes a share in proportion to how many there are times what one sells for. Evenly per piece, every piece takes the same share. The shares are worked out in whole cents and the leftover cents go to the rows with the largest remainders, so the rows add back up to the total exactly — no penny appears or disappears in the rounding.

The expected profit is resale value less cost, before marketplace fees and postage; for those, take a row’s cost into the Etsy or eBay fee calculator. More on why lots are priced this way is in mixed-lot costing and how to track the true cost of a storage unit.

Questions people ask

How do I work out the cost of each item in a pallet or storage unit?: Add up everything the lot cost you — the price, the buyer’s premium, tax, fuel and shipping — and spread it over what came out of it in proportion to what each thing will sell for. A coat you will sell for $120 then carries twelve times the cost of a $10 box of cables. That is the method this calculator uses by default.
Should I split by resale value or evenly per piece?: By value, almost always. An even split prices a designer bag and a chipped mug at the same cost, so the bag looks like a windfall and the mug looks like a loss when neither is true. Split by piece only when everything in the lot is alike — a pallet of the same phone case, a box of identical books.
Does the buyer’s premium count as part of the cost?: Yes. A 15% buyer’s premium on a $500 winning bid is $75 you paid for those goods, so it belongs in their cost exactly as the bid does. So do sales tax on the purchase and what it cost to get the lot home.
What if I do not know what everything is worth yet?: Use your best guess and change it as you go — the split only needs the values relative to each other. If you cannot guess at all, split by piece for now. The honest version is to keep the lot’s cost unpriced until you have finished unpacking, then spread it once over everything, including what you already sold.
What does “cost per $1 of resale value” mean?: It is what you paid for the lot divided by what you expect it to sell for. At 25¢ you are paying a quarter for every dollar of goods, which leaves room for fees, postage and the pieces that never sell. A common rule of thumb is to pay no more than about a third of what the lot will sell for.

Sell from the lot before you finish counting.

In Intakes a mixed lot is one purchase. Unpack it in batches and sell as you go; when you close it, the price is spread over everything you found — including what already sold, whose profit updates to the true figure.

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