Landed Cost Calculator for Oral Care Imports
The quoted unit price is not what the goods cost you. Freight, insurance, duty, brokerage and payment fees all sit on top, and duty is normally charged on the CIF value rather than on the goods alone.
Enter your numbers to see the real per-tube cost — and the retail price a target margin implies.
Landed cost calculator
Runs in your browserA worked example
Illustrative figures, not a quotation10,000 tubes quoted at $0.42 each. Every cost line below is a real cost of getting that consignment to your door; the duty rate is an assumption you would replace with the rate your broker confirms for your destination market.
| Cost line | Basis | Amount | Share of total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goods value | 10,000 tubes @ $0.42 | $4,200.00 | 76.9% |
| Freight | Sea LCL, flat | $680.00 | 12.4% |
| Insurance | 0.5% of goods | $21.00 | 0.4% |
| Duty | Illustrative rate applied to CIF | $318.57 | 5.8% |
| Customs brokerage | Flat entry fee | $95.00 | 1.7% |
| Payment fees | 3.5% of goods | $147.00 | 2.7% |
| Total landed | — | $5,461.57 | 100% |
- Quoted unit price $0.420
- Landed cost per tube $0.546
- Retail at 60% margin $1.37
- Markup multiple 2.50×
What goes into landed cost
-
Goods value
Unit price × quantity, as quoted by the supplier. On a toothpaste quote this should already include the tube, the cap and the carton; if it does not, add packaging before you compare suppliers. -
Freight
Whatever the forwarder charges to move the consignment. Sea is slower and much cheaper per tube at volume; air only makes sense for samples, relaunches and top-ups. -
Insurance
Normally quoted as a small percentage of the goods value. Cheap, and it is part of the CIF basis that duty is calculated on. -
Duty
Charged on the CIF value — goods plus freight plus insurance — at the rate your customs authority sets for the exact goods and destination country. Rates for toothpaste differ by HS heading and by market. Confirm the rate with your broker; nobody else can classify your product for you. -
Customs brokerage
A flat fee for clearing the entry, plus any local handling charges. Pay it once per consignment, so it barely registers on a full container and hurts on a single pallet. -
Payment fees
Card processing, platform commission, currency conversion, transfer charges. Quoted as a percentage of the goods value in most cases.
Margin is not markup
A 60% margin means the gross profit is 60% of the selling price, so the selling price is the cost divided by 0.4 — a 2.5× multiple. A 60% markup on the same cost would be 1.6×, a very different price. Whichever you use internally, be explicit with anyone downstream, because the same words mean different numbers in different companies.
Freight, brokerage and MOQ change with order size
Freight and brokerage are largely fixed per consignment. On 10,000 tubes the two together add about 18% to the goods value; on a 1,000-tube trial the same fees can add more than 150%, which is why a small first order never looks cheap per unit. Budget the trial as a sampling cost rather than as the beginning of your unit economics.
Sources & methodology
- Duty is calculated on the CIF value (goods + freight + insurance), which is the usual customs basis for imported goods.
- Classification under HS / HTS, together with the destination country, determines the rate. Only your customs broker can classify your specific goods — the rate you enter here is a planning assumption.
- Payment fee percentages vary by channel; enter the rate your own processor or marketplace charges rather than a generic figure.
Need a number for your own specification?
Send us the formula base, the fill size and the quantity. We will come back with stock, pricing and lead time — and ship samples so you can test them yourself.
