Returns / month
80
Free calculator
Type your monthly orders, return rate, and per-return costs. Watch the true monthly cost of returns, beyond the refund itself, move as you type. No email, no gate, nothing leaves this page.
The calculator
The boxes start filled with an illustrative example, not a benchmark. Replace it with your own numbers.
What it costs you to get the item back, label and transit, not what the customer paid.
Receiving, inspecting, and putting the item back into inventory, or discarding it.
Damaged, opened, or out of season by the time it's back. Zero if you rarely see this.
The share of that item's value lost when it can't be resold at full price: a markdown, or a full write-off.
Total monthly cost of returns
This month's returns cost $1,580 beyond the refund itself: reverse shipping, restocking labor, and lost value on items that can't be resold at full price.
returns = orders * return rate reverse shipping total = returns * reverse shipping cost per return restocking labor total = returns * restocking labor cost per return non-resellable returns = returns * share not resellable at full price markdown / write-off loss = non-resellable returns * order value * margin lost total cost of returns = reverse shipping + restocking labor + markdown loss cost per return = total cost of returns / returns returned revenue = returns * order value cost as % of returned revenue = total cost of returns / returned revenue
This is reverse-logistics cost only: what it takes to get the item back, inspect it, and account for what it's worth once it can't be sold as new. It does not include the cost of the original sale.
See it on your own data Real numbers from your Shopify store, not a guess.
This is reverse-logistics cost only: reverse shipping, restocking labor, and the value lost when an item comes back damaged or out of season. It does not include the customer-acquisition cost you already spent to win that order in the first place. That spend does not come back with the item either, it's effectively lost too, and it is often the single largest cost tied to a return, this calculator just can't see it.
Treat the number above as a floor, not the full economic loss of a return.
Questions
There's no single benchmark that holds across categories, and be wary of anyone citing one precise universal number. Apparel and footwear commonly run higher than other categories because fit and sizing drive returns, while categories like consumables or non-wearable goods tend to run much lower. The more useful comparison is your own rate over time, not a number from a different kind of store.
Usually the write-off, not the shipping label. Reverse shipping and restocking labor are real but relatively small and predictable per return. The bigger swing is what happens to items that come back damaged, opened, or out of season: those often sell at a markdown or don't sell again at all, and that lost value tends to be larger than the shipping and labor combined.
Most of the lever is upstream of the return itself: clearer size charts, more accurate product photos and descriptions, and honest fit guidance tend to reduce how many returns happen at all, particularly the "wrong size or didn't match the photo" kind. That's a conceptual starting point, not a guaranteed fix, since return drivers vary by product and category.
No. The refund is revenue you already collected and are giving back, it's a wash on the books, not an added cost. Everything in this calculator is cost beyond the refund: what it takes to get the item back and deal with it once it's here.
No, they're different mechanisms. RTO happens when a cash-on-delivery order is refused or undeliverable and never reaches the customer at all, it's mostly a factor in markets where COD is common and is largely not relevant to US-based stores. A return, as this calculator treats it, is an order the customer received and sent back.
Next
Upstream nets returns against contribution margin per SKU, using real reverse-shipping and restocking costs pulled from your own store data, not one blended monthly average typed in by hand.