Liquidation Pallet ROI: Break-Even Math With Unsellable Units
The question
How many items from a liquidation pallet do I have to sell to break even, and what is the ROI if some are unsellable?
Short answer
Add the pallet price, freight and any sales tax into one landed cost, then divide by what each sold item leaves after fees, label and supplies. That gives the number of items you must sell to break even. In the example, a 100-unit lot with a $750.00 landed cost ($600.00 pallet plus $150.00 freight) needs 52 sales at a $20 average price, and 80 sales leave $421.20, a 56.2% ROI (profit ÷ landed cost).
- In numbers
- A $750.00 pallet breaks even at 52 units sold at a $20 average
- Worked example
- The $20 pallet, line by line · Fig. 1
Fee rates as of · Fee change log →
On this page8 sections
A liquidation pallet or bin is bought as a lot, so the usual per-item profit math has no price tag to start from. What you know is one total, a manifest count and a guess about how much of it will sell.
This guide builds the numbers in the order you meet them: the landed cost of the lot, what a sold item leaves after fees, how many sales it takes to break even, and what happens to ROI and your hourly pay when part of the pallet never sells. It uses example numbers only. This guide cites no primary source for what a “typical” pallet returns, so no such figure appears here. Run your own manifest through the same steps.
Start with the landed cost
The landed cost is everything you paid to get the lot into your hands: the pallet or bin price, freight, and any sales tax you paid on it. IRS Publication 334 lists freight-in as part of cost of goods sold for merchandise you buy for sale, and says sales tax on merchandise bought for resale is part of the cost of that merchandise (Pub 334).
The example lot, with example prices:
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Pallet price (100 units on the manifest) | $600.00 |
| Freight-in | $150.00 |
| Sales tax paid | $0.00 |
| Landed cost | $750.00 |
That is $7.50 per manifest unit, but a manifest unit is not a sold unit. If 20 of the 100 are broken, missing or not worth listing, the same $750.00 is spread over 80 sellable units: $9.375 each, or $9.38 rounded. Divide by the units you can actually sell, never by the count on the paperwork.
What one sold item leaves
Use one platform and one shipping setup so the math stays readable. The example sells every unit on eBay in a category charged the most-categories rate (without a Store subscription), with $8.00 of shipping charged to the buyer, an $8.00 label you buy, $0.85 of supplies, and an example buyer’s tax rate of 8% (the marketplace charges the rate for the buyer’s address). As of November 5, 2026, eBay’s fee page states a final value fee of 13.6% on the total amount of the sale, which includes shipping and sales tax, plus a $0.40 per-order fee on orders over $10.00. Some categories, such as books and media, charge more, so check yours.
Through our fee engine, the amount each sold unit leaves before any pallet cost is:
| Average sale price | Net payout | Less supplies | Left per sold unit |
|---|---|---|---|
| $15.00 | $11.22 | $0.85 | $10.37 |
| $20.00 | $15.49 | $0.85 | $14.64 |
| $30.00 | $24.02 | $0.85 | $23.17 |
| $40.00 | $32.55 | $0.85 | $31.70 |
Net payout is what lands in your balance after platform fees and the label you buy. Fee components are rounded to the cent and then added; platforms may round differently by a cent. At a $20.00 price, for example, eBay’s fee is 13.6% of $30.24 ($4.11) plus $0.40, or $4.51 in all. The eBay fees guide explains why the base includes shipping and tax.
How many sales to break even
Break-even is the number of sold units whose “left per sold unit” first covers the $750.00 landed cost. At $20.00 that is $750.00 ÷ $14.64, rounded up, or 52 units. At $30.00 it is 33; at $15.00 it is 73; at $40.00 it is 24.
The table shows lot profit (units sold × left per unit − $750.00) when 80, 60 or 40 of the 100 units sell:
| Average sale price | Break-even units | 80 sold | 60 sold | 40 sold |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $15.00 | 73 | $79.60 | −$127.80 | −$335.20 |
| $20.00 | 52 | $421.20 | $128.40 | −$164.40 |
| $30.00 | 33 | $1,103.60 | $640.20 | $176.80 |
| $40.00 | 24 | $1,786.00 | $1,152.00 | $518.00 |
The price column matters more than the sold count. At a $15.00 average, losing 27 units cuts the profit to about $6, and a 28th turns it into a loss, while at $40.00 you could sell fewer than a quarter of the units and still come out ahead. Cheap items are also where flat per-order costs bite hardest; the cheap-items guide compares platforms at $5 to $20.
The $20 pallet, line by line
Here is the $20.00 average-price lot as more of it goes unsold. “Money in” is units sold × $14.64, after fees, label and supplies. Profit is money in minus the $750.00 landed cost, and ROI is profit ÷ $750.00.
| Units sold | Money in | Landed cost | Profit | ROI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | $1,464.00 | $750.00 | $714.00 | 95.2% |
| 80 | $1,171.20 | $750.00 | $421.20 | 56.2% |
| 60 | $878.40 | $750.00 | $128.40 | 17.1% |
| 50 | $732.00 | $750.00 | −$18.00 | −2.4% |
| 40 | $585.60 | $750.00 | −$164.40 | −21.9% |
Every 10 units that don’t sell cost $146.40 of profit here. The ROI definition is the same one the rest of this site uses: profit ÷ the money you put into inventory, here the landed cost.
Fig. 1Pallet profit as fewer units sell
Linear · $0 to $1,500
Count your time
A pallet is also an afternoon of sorting, testing, photographing and listing, and that labor is not in the table. Suppose each sold unit takes 10 minutes from the pallet to the post office. Eighty sold units is 800 minutes, or 13.3 hours, so the $421.20 profit is $31.59 an hour. At 60 sold, it is 600 minutes, or 10 hours, and $128.40 is $12.84 an hour. Units that never sell cost time too: opening, testing and listing them is not counted here.
Use a number from your own timed sessions. The true profit guide shows how to turn minutes per item into profit per hour.
What the math leaves out
- Refunds and returns. The engine models none, so subtract them from money in if you expect any.
- Price cuts. The average sale price is an average of what actually sold, not the list price.
- Storage, supplies bought in bulk and mileage. Add any that apply to the lot.
- Unsold units at year end. Generally, the cost of units you still hold at year end is counted in ending inventory rather than deducted in the purchase year, though some small business taxpayers may use a different method, and the IRS pages cited here do not address how damaged or unsellable units are treated. The inventory guide covers the basics, and the Schedule C instructions explain Part III. This is general information, not tax advice; ask a tax professional how to treat them on your return.
- Selling on another platform. The break-even count moves with the fee structure; compare it before you bid.
Next step
Before the next bid, write down the landed cost, divide it by the left-per-unit figure for your average price, and compare the break-even count to the units you realistically expect to sell. The reseller profit calculator computes the per-unit figure from the platform’s real net payout, and the price-to-list calculator works backward from a target profit to a price.
Sources
Each source was read on the date shown. When one changes, this guide and its date change with it.
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