What Is a Good Profit Margin?

Profit margin is your profit as a percentage of your selling price. Markup is profit as a percentage of your cost. They're easy to confuse, and mixing them up leads to underpricing. This guide is about margin — what you actually keep per sale.

These are general guides, not rules — your real numbers depend on your costs and pricing.

Digital products (ebooks, printables, templates): very high, often 70–95%, because each extra sale costs you almost nothing.

Handmade goods: aim for a gross margin of 50% or more so there's room to pay for both materials and your time; net margins often land around 20–30%.

Physical retail / reselling (e.g. eBay flips): net margins of 10–20% are typical and healthy.

General ecommerce (Shopify): 10–20% net is solid; above 20% is strong.

Print-on-demand: often thin, 10–30%, because base product costs are high — pricing and niche matter a lot.

As a rough rule of thumb across small product businesses, a net margin above 10% is generally considered healthy and 20%+ is strong. But context matters more than the number: a 15% margin on high-volume sales can out-earn a 60% margin on a product that rarely sells.

Raise your price (often the fastest lever — test it).

Lower your product or material cost, or buy in larger quantities.

Reduce platform and payment fees where you can, and price them in.

Bundle products to lift the average order value.

Cut or tighten ad spend that isn't paying for itself.

Benchmarks are a starting point, not a target. Plug your real selling price and costs into the Profit Margin Calculator to see exactly where you stand — then decide what "good" means for your business.