Free Goods Calculator
Free goods ship in with the order, so the brand never pays freight, excise or its own margin on them. That one fact changes what a 5CS+1 is really worth — to you, and to the distributor you are funding it with.
The no-deal stack. Everything after this is measured against it.
Change the case count or the funding split and every margin moves with it.
| Deal | Paid cases | Free cases | Supplier funds % | Free goods cost | Supplier outlay | Distributor outlay | Cost / paid case | Distributor GP% if shelf held | Shelf if passed through | Supplier GP% |
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Free cases ride along with the order. The brand pays to make them and nothing else — no FOB margin to itself, no freight it bills on, no excise it fronts. So the cost of the deal is simply free cases times COGS, and that is the number the two tiers split.
Whoever funds it, the distributor still receives more cases than it paid for, so its effective cost per case falls. What happens next is the actual negotiation, and it only goes two ways. Hold the price to the retailer and the distributor pockets the difference as margin. Pass the deal through and the shelf price drops instead. The two right-hand columns show you both, side by side, for every scenario you build.
The column worth watching is cost per paid case. A 5CS+1 at full brand funding is not a rounding error — it is a real discount off FOB, and the tool prints that percentage underneath so you can compare a free-goods offer against a straight price cut on equal terms.
Before you write the deal: free goods are regulated trade practice, not just math. Several states restrict or prohibit them outright, and others limit the quantity or require the offer to be posted and made available to every account on the same terms. Confirm what is allowed in the market before you commit.
Planning estimate only — not tax or legal advice. State excise is applied from a maintained reference table and flagged where a rate is flat or a jurisdiction is control. Verify the excise class for your product and market, and confirm final figures with your distributor.