Money, pricing & unit economics

Know if you make money on order number one, and price for value, not discounts.

What founders use for money, pricing & unit economics, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

  1. Goes one level deeper than a formula: it rebuilds the contribution-margin income statement for a real D2C P&L, so you can... polaranalytics.com Article Contribution Margin Ratio, Per Unit & Income Statement: The Complete DTC Breakdown Polar Analytics In 2 answers
  2. The single most practical small-business cash-management framework in print, flipping 'profit is what's left over' to 'profit... mikemichalowicz.com Book Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine Mike Michalowicz
  3. Goes past line-item definitions into what to actually look for, margin trends, expense creep, seasonality, the analysis layer... Entreprenista Article How to Actually Read Your P&L (And What to Look For) Entreprenista
  4. Surveys options specifically for ecommerce sellers (marketplace integrations, multi-channel order sync) rather than generic... Vyapar TaxOne Article What Are the Top 10 Ecommerce Accounting Software in India 2025 Vyapar
  5. Pairs the cohort-analysis explainer with current 2026 category benchmarks, so you're not just learning the method but... eightx.co Article What Is Cohort Analysis in Ecommerce? A DTC Operator's Plain-English Guide (with 2026 Benchmarks) Eightx
  6. Goes beyond the LTV formula into churn diagnostics - why a cohort's LTV curve flattens - which is the more useful, actionable... ask-luca.com Article Ecommerce Customer Lifetime Value - LTV:CAC Benchmarks, Churn Diagnostics, and Repeat Purchase Playbooks Luca
  7. Ties LTV back into the broader unit-economics stack - CAC, contribution margin, ROAS - so you don't calculate LTV in a vacuum... getfairview.com Article D2C Unit Economics Metrics Every Brand Must Track Fairview
  8. Directly resolves a confusion most founders don't realise they have - repurchase and retention sound interchangeable but... peelinsights.com Article Repurchase vs. Retention Rate: How to Measure and Why These Metrics Are Essential for DTC Brands Peel Insights
  9. The clean definitional explainer for Recency-Frequency-Monetary segmentation from the team that built cohort tooling... peelinsights.com Article What is RFM Analysis? Peel Insights
  10. A real, data-backed benchmark study (156K customers) rather than an assumed rule of thumb - gives you an actual number to... bsandco.us Article Repeat Purchase Rate Benchmarks: 18.8% Across 156K Customers BS&Co
  11. An India-first take on retention that names the specific levers Indian brands actually use - WhatsApp CRM, loyalty programs,... productgrowth.in Article D2C Retention Playbook: How India's Best Brands Win ProductGrowth.in
  12. A fresh, dated 2026 benchmark compilation that breaks retention and repeat-purchase rates out by category, giving a second data... taylorsicard.com Article DTC Repeat-Purchase & Retention Benchmarks 2026 Taylor Sicard
  13. Marketplace and quick-commerce settlement cycles create a receivables gap that invoice financing exists specifically to bridge... recurclub.com Article Top Invoice Financing Startups in India: Guide for SaaS/D2C Founders Recur Club
  14. Quick commerce has its own pricing math - platform fees, dark-store margins, impulse-basket psychology - that most global... ecomsarthi.com Article Zepto Pricing Strategy Guide for D2C Brands EcomSarthi
  15. Marketplace referral fees, FBA/FAssured charges and Buy Box dynamics mean your Amazon price can't just mirror your website... ecomsarthi.com Article Amazon Pricing Strategy Guide for D2C Brands EcomSarthi
  16. Flipkart's fee structure and Big Billion Days-style event calendar behave differently from Amazon's - this fills the gap so... ecomsarthi.com Article Flipkart Pricing Strategy Guide for D2C Brands EcomSarthi
  17. Uses real apparel-brand CPI data to show how a premium-positioned brand held margin through an 11-14% cost inflation cycle by... eightx.co Article How to Raise Prices Without Losing Customers Eightx
  18. F&B lives and dies on repeat purchase and thin unit margins, so the pricing math is genuinely different from a beauty or... eightx.co Article Food Brand Pricing Strategy: A CFO's Guide Eightx
  19. Supplements and wellness carry high perceived value and strong subscription potential - this shows how to anchor price around... eightx.co Article Supplements Brand Pricing Strategy: A CFO's Guide Eightx
  20. Connects pricing directly to the paid-media math Indian founders actually live in - break-even ROAS, discount depth vs ad... brandchanakya.in Article D2C Performance Marketing Strategy: Complete 2026 Guide Brand Chanakya
  21. A data-backed benchmark from 410M+ shipments across 6,000+ brands, the closest thing to an industry yardstick for where your... Unicommerce Report India D2C Report 2026: Operations, RTO & Growth Data Unicommerce
  22. Sauce.vc writes first cheques into pre-revenue Indian consumer brands - this traces how their thesis evolved as they followed... inc42.com Article From Pre-Revenue to Growth: How Sauce.vc's Thesis Kept Up With India's D2C Boom Inc42
  23. The definitive D2C-specific breakdown of the CAC you should actually track: new-customer CAC vs blended CAC, why the gap... 1800dtc.com Article How to Calculate D2C CAC: Formulas for New & Blended 1-800-D2C
  24. A crisp, numbers-driven walkthrough of how the same month can show a ₹42 blended CAC and a ₹70 paid CAC - and why confusing the... eightx.co Article What Is Blended CAC vs Paid CAC? Eightx

Show the next 24

The questions

Unit economics & contribution margin 7

Do you make money on order number one?

What is contribution margin for a D2C brand, and what do CM1, CM2 and CM3 mean? 4 → How do I calculate CAC, and what's the difference between blended CAC and new-customer CAC? 3 → What does a healthy CM1 / CM2 / CM3 actually look like for an Indian D2C brand? 4 → My revenue keeps growing but I'm still losing money. Why does that happen? 4 → How do I factor RTO, returns, COD, shipping and discounts into my true margin? 4 → All 7 questions in Unit economics & contribution margin →
Pricing & discounting strategy 6

Charge for value; stop training buyers to wait for sales.

How do I price a new D2C product when I have no direct competitor to benchmark against? 3 → Should I price the same on my own website and on Amazon, Flipkart and Zepto? 4 → How much can I discount before I train my customers to wait for the next sale? 4 → How do I raise prices without losing customers or crashing conversion? 3 → What pricing psychology actually works for D2C - charm pricing, bundling, anchoring? 3 → All 6 questions in Pricing & discounting strategy →
Financial modeling & forecasting 6

See the cash before it surprises you.

How do I build a basic financial model for my D2C brand from scratch? 4 → What's the difference between a P&L, a cash flow statement and a balance sheet - and which one actually tells me if I'll run out of money? 3 → How do I calculate my cash runway, and how do I know when I need to raise or borrow? 3 → Should I take on debt (working capital loans, invoice financing) instead of raising equity to fund inventory? 3 → What are the biggest financial modeling mistakes D2C founders make? 4 → All 6 questions in Financial modeling & forecasting →
Cohorts, LTV & repeat rate 6

The metrics that decide if you have a brand.

What is cohort analysis, and why does it matter more than a single repeat-rate number? 3 → How do I calculate customer LTV for my D2C brand - on revenue or on margin? 3 → What's a good repeat purchase rate for my category, and how do Indian brands compare to global benchmarks? 3 → What's the difference between repurchase rate and retention rate, and which should I report to investors? 2 → What is RFM analysis, and how do I use it to segment customers for retention marketing? 3 → All 6 questions in Cohorts, LTV & repeat rate →
Accounting & bookkeeping 6

Books that tell you if you're actually making money.

I'm not a finance person, what books/records do I actually need to keep from day one? 3 → What accounting software should a small D2C brand in India actually use, Zoho, Tally, Vyapar, or just Excel? 4 → How do I actually read my P&L and know if I'm making money, not just growing revenue? 3 → What is 'Profit First' and should I actually run my business that way? 3 → What unit economics numbers should I actually be tracking every week, CM1, CM2, contribution margin? 3 → All 6 questions in Accounting & bookkeeping →
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