TikTok Shop Calculator Breakdown

The Math, Step by Step.

1. 1

   $50 product

   the numbers the video starts from

   Let's say your product costs $50 and you have a 76% gross margin. You send 5,000 samples to creators on TikTok. Creator commission is typically 15%.

   We're not including repeat purchase rate in the calculations, but typically buyers will buy again in other channels like Amazon, Shopify or in retail stores.

2. 2

   4 videos

   for every sample you send

   With every sample you send, a creator has to post. So at minimum, 5,000 samples get you 5,000 videos.

   With a creator retention mechanism (we do this in the form of a Discord group), we get four videos for every one sample sent.

3. 3

   Break even

   where each sale goes, and why brands still do it

   Product

   24%

   Shipping

   17.5%

   TikTok Shop fee

   6%

   Refunds and chargebacks

   5.6%

   Creator commission

   15%

   Our agency commission

   15%

   If you have a great product, refunds and chargebacks will be less than the 5.6% average.

   TikTok Shop is a break even for most brands, and they understand that this creates such good demand that it typically overflows to Amazon, Shopify or retailers.

4. 4

   105M+ views

   from 5,000 samples

   A few videos go viral and get millions of views. A few others get a few hundred or a thousand. That adds up to 5,260 views a video on average.

   5,000 samples and four videos per creator cumulatively bring in over 105 million views.

5. 5

   Sub $1 CPM

   95% less than Meta ads

   Meta ads on average will charge you a $21 CPM.

   And your conversions go up, because influencers have a lot more trust than a cold ad people see in their feed.

6. 6

   97% cheaper

   new videos for your ad accounts

   When we onboard creators, we get usage rights, and this is included in the cost.

   20,000 new creatives would cost you $4 million from professional UGC creators at $200 a video. You get them at the cost of $103,000 in samples.

7. 7

   $1M in sales

   in the last 28 days, October 7 to November 3, 2026

   Caraway sent 1.4K products and got 4.7K sponsored videos made, totaling $1 million in sales that month.

   Summer Fridays sent 2.6K samples and got 5.1K videos out of them. They sold 8.6K products, almost $300,000 in sales.

   That is solely attributed to TikTok Shop. Many more sales come in from the overflow, or from repeat customers buying on Amazon, Shopify or other channels.

8. 8

   30% margin

   a high ticket product works even better

   Even if you have a high ticket product, in fact, this works better, because you pay the same shipping cost and keep more margin. So now it's a 30% margin.

9. 9

   $0 retainer

   we run it end to end

   Our agency commission is 15%. That runs this operation end to end, without a retainer, without a setup fee, without you doing anything except giving access to your TikTok Shop.

   Completely hands off for your team.