#profit-margins
Calculate, benchmark, and improve profit margins across your business
Kroger posted $34.6B in Q2 FY2026 sales (+2.0%) and $641M net earnings, but identical sales without fuel rose just 0.2% and full-year identical-sales guidance was cut to 0.2%–0.8% while adjusted EPS of $5.10–$5.30 was reaffirmed. We rebuild the quarter in a Beancount ledger to show how pharmacy, fuel, media, and eCommerce carry a 1.9%-net-margin grocer.
Shopify Plus now starts at $2,500/month and the variable platform fee on online sales is reported at 0.40% of GMV (up from 0.25%), capped around $40,000/month. Here is the fee math at $3M to $120M in annual GMV, plus how to book the license, variable fee, and payouts so margin erosion shows up in your P&L instead of at tax time.
A classic salted pretzel costs about $0.29 per unit once packaging and realistic yield are counted. This guide shows how to build per-batch recipe costing cards, hold a 28-35% blended food cost and 55-60% prime cost, book waste and samples honestly, and choose between a kiosk and a storefront with a break-even calculation instead of a gut feel.
A quick lube earns its margin per car, not per markup. This guide shows how to cost bulk oil by the quart on every delivery, reconcile each tank book-against-stick weekly, book shrinkage and used-oil hauling as separate accounts, and review the five daily KPIs (car count, average ticket, add-ons per 100 cars, bay time, gross profit per car) against industry benchmarks such as 0.95 cars per labor hour, 80 percent gross profit on labor and 50 percent on parts.
A per-person tea charge is a service charge, not a tip — it is taxable revenue, and any share paid to staff is wages subject to withholding. This guide covers dim sum bookkeeping specifics: cart versus order-sheet labor tracking, prime cost at or below 60–65 percent, food cost of 28–33 percent, weekend labor per cover, and the cash controls a stamp-card room needs.
A 50% markup on an $8.00 cost yields a 33% margin, not 50% — the single most expensive arithmetic error in small-business pricing. This guide gives the formulas for cost-plus, value-based, and penetration pricing, worked examples, the markup-vs-margin correction, and how to A/B test a price before committing.
Residential duct cleaning runs roughly $25–$50 per supply vent (about $75 for returns) and dryer vent add-ons average $145, so a one-line invoice hides your margin. This guide itemizes base fees, vent counts and add-ons, costs the four buckets behind each job, capitalizes a $9,000 vacuum rig instead of expensing it as supplies, and tracks the five KPIs — revenue per vent, revenue per tech-hour, upsell attach rate, callback rate, revenue per truck per day — that decide whether the next rig pays for itself.
How to keep the books for a gas station with a convenience store — splitting fuel from inside sales, tracking tank inventory in gallons, booking lottery as an agency arrangement, recording tobacco buydowns, and keeping card fees off the revenue line. U.S. convenience stores rang up a record $341 billion of in-store sales in 2025, yet NACS found the average in-store basket lost roughly seven cents per transaction after expenses.
Pour cost is beverage COGS divided by beverage revenue — target 15-20% on spirits, 20-25% on draft, and 25-35% on wine by the glass. This guide covers how to compute usage and variance weekly, why a half-barrel keg yields about 112 pints instead of the theoretical 124, and how to split revenue, COGS, comps, and keg deposits so the leak is visible in the ledger.
Filament is often under a third of a 3D print's true cost. A six-layer costing method — filament, electricity, wear parts, failed prints, post-processing labor, and machine depreciation — shows why a $4.20 print really costs $15.32, and how to work backwards from Etsy's ~10–12% fees to a list price with a real margin.
Surveys put 64% of diners against restaurant surge pricing and 81% ready to avoid peak hours or leave entirely, while 75% will shift to an off-peak visit for an incentive — so discount the trough instead of taxing the peak, and track discounts, daypart P&L and delivery fees as separate lines.
Ghost tour and walking-tour operators often keep less than half of ticket revenue after OTA commissions of 20–30%, guide pay, and year-round insurance. Here is how to book per-seat contribution margin by channel, treat advance sales as deferred revenue, and budget October to fund February.
