Landed cost calculator: split freight and duty across SKUs

Landed cost per unit is everything you paid to get a SKU into your warehouse, divided by the units received.

Landed cost per unit = (supplier cost of the line + its share of each shipment cost + its duty + its share of MPF and HMF) ÷ units

Example: one SKU on an ocean entry, 1,000 units at 5 dollars each.

• Goods: 5,000 dollars
• Its share of freight: 600 dollars
• Duty at 5%: 250 dollars
• MPF: 0.3464% is 17.32 dollars, under the minimum, so 34.58 dollars
• HMF at 0.125%: 6.25 dollars
• Landed cost: 5,890.83 dollars, or 5.89 dollars a unit

Each shipment cost is split by the thing that drives it, and each SKU takes its share.

SKU share = cost × the SKU’s weight, volume, value or units ÷ the shipment total of the same

• Freight: by volume for ocean, by weight for air or trucking
• Insurance, broker, MPF and HMF: by value
• Per-piece handling or labeling: by units
• Duty: each SKU’s own value × its own rate

Example: 3,000 dollars of ocean freight split by volume. A SKU that takes 6 CBM of a 20 CBM shipment carries 900 dollars.

Splitting freight by value instead moves cost onto small, pricey items and off bulky ones, so bulky SKUs look more profitable than they are.

Besides duty, most formal entries pay a merchandise processing fee (MPF), and ocean cargo pays a harbor maintenance fee (HMF).

• MPF: 0.3464% of the entered value, at least 34.58 dollars and at most 670.86 dollars per formal entry, from October 1, 2026 (19 CFR 24.23, CBP Dec. 26-14)
• Informal entry MPF: 2.77 dollars when automated and not prepared by CBP, for most shipments of 2,500 dollars or less (19 CFR 143.21)
• HMF: 0.125% of the cargo value for cargo unloaded at a listed U.S. port (19 CFR 24.24)
• MPF exemptions: goods that qualify as USMCA originating, among others in 19 CFR 24.23(c)

Duty, MPF and HMF are figured on the value under 19 U.S.C. 1401a, which leaves out international freight and insurance (19 CFR 152.102). Find each duty rate in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule and add any extra tariffs to the same rate.

Example: a 120,000 dollar ocean container pays 415.68 dollars of MPF and 150 dollars of HMF.

Shopify keeps one Cost per item on each variant, and its profit reports use it.

• Drop your Shopify product export into step 4. It writes back every variant of the matched products with the new cost.
• In Shopify, Products > Import, tick Overwrite products with matching handles. Shopify needs the URL handle and Title columns to update a product.
• A new cost applies to orders from that day on. Past orders keep the cost they were placed with.
• For QuickBooks Online, the SKU and cost per item file gives your bookkeeper one landed cost per item.

Shopify’s help gives the supplier price as its example of cost per item. Using landed cost instead puts freight and duty into the margin it reports. Shopify margin after fees and shipping covers the selling side, and bulk editing Shopify prices covers changing prices after a cost moves.

The download from step 3 opens in Excel with each cost split into its own column, so every number can be checked.

To build the split yourself, put each SKU’s driver in column D and the cost in B1:

Share = =B1*D2/SUM(D2:D50)

Press F4 on B1 and on the range to lock them, copy it down, add the shares to the line value, and divide by the quantity. Example: with 900 dollars in B1 and D2 at 6 of 20 total CBM, the formula returns 270.