Price Before Promotion — Pricing Strategy Ebook + Calculator Toolkit

Stop approving promotions from revenue alone

A 20% discount can look harmless. A 15% creator commission can look standard. An ad dashboard can report a healthy ROAS. But once product cost, fulfillment, shipping, payment fees, platform costs, returns, commission, and acquisition are combined, the order may leave almost nothing behind.

Price Before Promotion gives small Shopify, TikTok Shop, and DTC brands a practical operating system for seeing the complete economic picture before a promotion goes live.

You will build three essential price boundaries:

• a break-even floor;
• a target price that funds required contribution;
• a customer-facing list price supported by buyer value and market context.

Then you will test discounts, free-shipping offers, gifts, bundles, platform programs, affiliate commissions, creator commissions, and advertising costs against those boundaries.

What this system helps you do

• Calculate loaded variable cost per order—not just product cost
• Separate markup, gross margin, contribution, cash, and net profit
• Set channel-specific floors for Shopify, TikTok Shop, wholesale, and other paths
• Calculate floor, target, and customer-facing list-price bands
• Model discount, shipping, gift, program, commission, and return costs together
• Find a contribution-safe discount boundary
• Calculate a maximum creator or affiliate commission
• Set allowable CAC and simplified break-even ROAS guardrails
• Compare single products, bundles, shipping thresholds, and offer roles
• Run a clean price test using contribution per qualified session
• Reconcile customer quality, refunds, support, and operations before scaling
• Make a documented Go, Change, or Stop decision

Inside the 105-page ebook

Part I — Pin Down the Economic Truth Separate commonly confused metrics, build the loaded variable cost stack, and calculate floor, target, and channel-specific price bands.

Part II — Read Buyer Value and Reference Points Define the buyer job, map alternatives without copying competitors, and build entry, core, premium, and bundle architecture.

Part III — Install Prices and Clean Tests Set an ethical list price, design a controlled price test, and interpret elasticity, revenue, contribution, and customer quality together.

Part IV — Control Promotions and Acquisition Model the complete promotion stack, set creator commissions from contribution, calculate CAC and ROAS boundaries, and reconcile Shopify with TikTok Shop economics.

Part V — Evaluate, Decide, and Operate Run a 21-day pricing sprint, study the complete CedarLane Goods case, and issue a bounded decision.

The P.R.I.C.E. operating loop

P — Pin down the economic truth Build the complete cost stack and separate order economics from fixed business overhead.

R — Read buyer value and references Define the job, alternatives, risk, proof, and market-facing context.

I — Install price architecture and a clean test Choose meaningful price cells and freeze the variables that could contaminate the result.

C — Control promotion and acquisition exposure Approve the full discount, commission, shipping, program, and CAC stack—not the parts in isolation.

E — Evaluate and decide Reconcile contribution, customer quality, refunds, operations, and evidence before the next investment.

Your four-file digital toolkit

1. Full-color ebook PDF A 105-page, 6 × 9-inch reader edition with formulas, worked examples, decision gates, a 21-day sprint, and the original CedarLane Goods case.

2. Printable implementation toolkit PDF Twenty-five US Letter pages for price inputs, cost classification, floor and target calculations, promotion approval, test planning, decision records, and source checks.

3. Editable Excel calculator Seventeen connected worksheets with 452 formula cells and editable example inputs.

4. Kobo-ready EPUB A reflowable edition for e-reader use.

The 17-sheet calculator includes

• Start Here
• Price Dashboard
• Assumptions
• Loaded Costs
• Price Floor
• Channel P&L
• Promo Stack
• Discount Guardrail
• Bundle Builder
• Affiliate Economics
• Paid Acquisition
• Price Test
• Customer Quality
• SKU Architecture
• 21-Day Sprint
• Decision Memo
• Rules & Sources

Practical tools and formulas

• Loaded Cost per Sellable Unit
• Price Floor and Target Price
• Channel Price Bands
• Discount Headroom
• Complete Promotion Stack
• Affiliate and Creator Commission Boundary
• Allowed CAC
• Simplified Break-Even ROAS
• Bundle Contribution
• Return-Loss Allowance
• Contribution per Qualified Session
• Customer Quality Review
• 21-Point Pre-Promotion Check
• Price Test Brief
• Promotion Approval Memo
• Go / Change / Stop Decision Memo

Best for

• Shopify founders and store operators
• TikTok Shop sellers
• DTC and small consumer brands
• Creator and affiliate managers
• Growth marketers responsible for discounts or paid media
• Operators who need contribution-safe pricing guardrails before scaling

This system is not

• An earnings, sales, margin, ROAS, or profit promise
• A permanent list of platform rates or program rules
• A substitute for current business records or live platform documentation
• Tax, legal, accounting, investment, or individualized financial advice

All platform costs and policy inputs are editable because programs, fees, eligibility, attribution, and settlement behavior change. Replace every illustrative number with current business data before making a decision.

Digital delivery

This is a digital product. No physical item will be shipped. Files are supplied for the purchaser's internal business use, personal reading, and personal printing. Redistribution, resale, sublicensing, or uploading the files to a shared library is not permitted.

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Digital delivery and personal-use license

This is an instant digital download; no physical item is shipped. Open the file in a current PDF reader and print at Actual Size / 100% on US Letter paper when applicable.

One purchase grants one individual a personal-use license. Redistribution, resale, shared-library uploading, and client, team, workshop, or commercial-training use require separate written permission from Nite Read.

Educational information only. No sales, income, ranking, legal, financial, medical, safety, or platform result is guaranteed.