Pricing and Margins

Set prices that protect your margin across every channel.

1. Pricing methods: cost-plus, keystone, and the 40% ruleHow to turn a product's true cost into a price three ways — cost-plus, keystone, and the 40-percent rule — without confusing markup for margin or mistaking what a thing costs for what it will sell for.
2. Pricing across channels: wholesale, distributor, and retail marginsHow to price one product for each way you sell it — direct to a store and through a distributor — by building the margin stack from your cost to the shelf, so every business in the chain makes its cut and you keep yours.
3. Your price floor: never sell below it by accidentHow to set a hard price floor — your fully built cost plus the margin you refuse to give up — and hold every quote, promo, and big-account deal to it, so no order you take quietly loses you money.
4. Margin by product and by channel: what actually makes moneyHow to rank every product and every channel by the margin it truly earns — by rate and by dollars — so you can see which lines carry the business, which quietly lose money, and what to do about each.