When you create a product you reach a screen called "Set up prices". It is the screen that decides what your customer pays and what you keep. This article explains every figure on it, so you can price with confidence.
The four columns
Each size in your product gets one row, with four money columns:
"Retail price" is the price your customer pays. This is the only number you set. It is the price shown in your shop.
"Product costs" is what you pay Printumo to print that item.
"Shipping costs" is what you pay Printumo to ship it.
"Estimated profit" is your retail price minus the product cost, with your markup shown as a percentage underneath.
The one thing people get wrong
Shipping is not subtracted from the estimated profit. The profit figure is your retail price minus the product cost only.
So if you want the shipping to come out of your margin rather than out of your customer's pocket, you have to subtract it yourself. Look at the shipping column, decide whether your customer pays it at checkout or you absorb it, and set your retail price accordingly.
Click any figure in the shipping column to open "Shipping prices for" that size. It lists the cost for every destination we ship to, so you can see the spread before you commit to a price.
VAT is not included in these figures
Every cost on this screen is shown without VAT. Your estimated profit is calculated on those VAT-free costs.
VAT is added later, when Printumo bills you for a real order. It is applied to the product cost and to the shipping cost. The rate depends on your country and on whether you have given us a valid VAT number.
If you sell to consumers, remember that your own retail price normally has to include the VAT you owe in your customer's country. That is separate from what Printumo charges you.
Setting your markup quickly
Above the table there is a bar labelled "Adjust profit for your retail prices:". Choose a value in "Set profit to" and click "Update" to reprice every size at once.
The four presets are 50%, 100%, 150% and 200%. A markup of 100% means your retail price is double the product cost, which is the value Printumo falls back to if it has nothing else to go on.
In practice Printumo tries to match you rather than use the default. It looks first at the markup on this product, then at your most recent product of the same print type, then at the average markup across your last five priced items. Only if none of those exist does it apply 100%.
Retail prices are always rounded up to a whole unit of your currency.
Why the costs change when you change the country
Above the table you will find "Calculate costs for country:". It defaults to the United Kingdom.
Changing it changes the figures you see, because your order is produced at the facility closest to your customer, and different production partners have different costs and different shipping rates. Print cost is set by the partner who makes the item, not by the country you are selling into.
Use this selector to check your margin in the markets you actually sell to, not just the default one.
Currency, and one important difference between platforms
Costs are shown in euros unless you change them. Use "Select currency you'd like to sell in:" to switch. Fifteen currencies are available, including USD, GBP, AUD, DKK, SEK, NOK, CHF and PLN.
What happens to that price when the product reaches your store depends on the platform:
Shopify converts your retail price into your store's currency when the product is pushed.
Etsy converts your retail price into your Etsy shop's currency.
Wix does not convert. The number you set in Printumo is published to Wix exactly as it stands.
So if you sell through Wix, set your prices in the same currency your Wix store uses. If you do not, your shop will show the right number with the wrong currency symbol.
Custom price sets
Most sellers pay the standard Printumo price list. Some have a custom price set agreed with us.
To check which applies to you, open your profile and look at the "Your prices" card. A "Custom price set" badge means you are on your own list. Without the badge, you are on the standard list.
Artwork taken from the Art Library costs more than your own uploads, because a licence fee is included in the print cost.
Does ordering several prints reduce the cost?
Not on the print itself. The product cost is the same whether you order one copy or fifty. There is no quantity discount on printing.
Shipping is different. When several items in one order ship together, the first item pays the full shipping rate and each further item pays a reduced additional-item rate. Items are grouped by the shipping profile they belong to, so items made at different facilities are rated separately.
Unframed rolled paper prints are the best case. Several of them travel in one tube, and on those sizes the extra prints often add nothing to the shipping cost at all.
Note that the shipping column on the pricing screen always shows the rate for a single item. It does not preview the additional-item discount, so a multi-item order will usually cost less to ship than the pricing screen suggests.
Need a second opinion?
If you want to sanity-check your margins before you launch, send us the sizes you plan to sell and the countries you plan to sell to. We will tell you what the real costs look like across those markets.