MOQ = Minimum Order Quantity — the smallest number of units your supplier will sell you to unlock their bulk price.
Your supplier will give you a better price if you order more. But more units means more cash sitting on a shelf. This tells you whether the savings are actually worth it.
Bulk pricing looks great on paper — $3 off per unit, 500 units, that's $1,500 saved. But that $1,500 in savings comes with $4,500 in inventory sitting in your warehouse for the next four months. That cash isn't free. It's tied up instead of paying your next invoice, running an ad, or just sitting in your bank account.
The question isn't whether the unit price is better. It's whether the savings outpace the cost of tying up that cash. This calculator runs that math for you.
Have your supplier's quote in front of you — you'll need two prices and the minimum quantity.
What you normally pay per unit today
Your current unit cost from your supplier — check your most recent invoice.
The bulk price they're offering and the minimum quantity required
Your supplier's quote: e.g. "$9.00/unit if you order 300 or more." Both numbers should be on the quote or in their pricing sheet.
How many units of this product you sell per day
Pull the last 30 days of sales for this product from your POS and divide by 30. This tells the calculator how long it'll take you to sell through the bulk order.
What you pay now per unit, without the bulk deal.
The per-unit price your supplier is quoting at MOQ.
The minimum quantity required to get the bulk price.
Average units sold per day over the last 30–90 days.
Optional — defaults to 30% if left blank
Industry standard is 20–30% annually — covers storage, insurance, tied-up cash, and shrinkage. Most small retailers use 30%.
Try an example
MOQ stands for Minimum Order Quantity — the smallest order a supplier will accept. It's set by your supplier, not by you. Suppliers impose MOQs to cover their setup costs, machine time, and packaging runs. Your job isn't to "calculate" an MOQ from scratch. It's to figure out whether the MOQ they quoted you actually makes sense for your business.
Use a break-even check: Break-Even Units = Fixed Order Costs ÷ (Selling Price − Variable Cost per Unit). Fixed costs include freight, duties, and any setup fees. Variable cost is what each unit costs you landed. If the break-even is well below the MOQ, the margin math works — the question shifts to cash flow.
Real example: your supplier sets a MOQ of 500 units. Each candle costs $4 landed, you sell them for $20, and your fixed order costs (freight, customs, broker fees) are $600. Break-even = 600 ÷ (20 − 4) = 38 units. The margin math is fine — 500 is way above 38. But check cash flow: 500 × $4 = $2,000 tied up. If you sell ~80 candles a month, that's six months of inventory. Tight, but workable.
Once you carry more than 5–10 SKUs, juggling each supplier's MOQ against your actual sell-through, lead time, and cash position turns into a spreadsheet nightmare. Most small business owners end up either overordering (cash stuck in dead stock) or underordering (constant stockouts and rush orders).
ReUp watches your real sales velocity across Shopify, Square, and WooCommerce, factors in each supplier's actual lead time (not their quoted lead time), and flags whenever an MOQ is going to bury your cash. It detects seasonal patterns from your own history — so you don't accept a 500-unit MOQ in February for a product that only sells in November. When the math works, it drafts the PO for one-click approval. When it doesn't, it tells you exactly what to renegotiate.
Total savings
(Regular cost − Bulk cost) × MOQ quantity
The gross saving if you buy at MOQ pricing instead of your normal rate.
Carrying cost
(MOQ × bulk cost) × carrying % × (days to sell ÷ 365)
The real cost of holding that inventory until it sells — storage, insurance, opportunity cost, and shrinkage. Industry standard is 20–30% annually. We default to 30%, which is conservative for most small retailers.
Net benefit
Total savings − Carrying cost
Positive means the bulk deal is worth it. Negative means the cash you're tying up costs more than you're saving. Marginal (positive, but more than 6 months of stock) means check your cash position before committing.
What does MOQ actually mean?
MOQ stands for Minimum Order Quantity. It is the smallest order your supplier will accept — set by them, not you, to cover their setup costs, machine time, and packaging runs. The MOQ on a quote is a starting point. Many suppliers will negotiate lower volumes in exchange for higher per-unit price or extended payment terms.
How do I know if a supplier MOQ is profitable for my shop?
Run two checks. First, break-even: Fixed Order Costs ÷ (Selling Price − Variable Cost). If break-even units are well below the MOQ, the margin works. Second, cash-flow runway: MOQ × unit cost should not exceed 30 to 40 percent of available inventory cash for a single SKU. The calculator on this page runs both.
What carrying-cost percentage should I assume?
Industry standard is 20 to 30 percent of inventory value per year. This bundles storage, insurance, opportunity cost, and shrinkage. Most small retailers default to 25 percent. The calculator uses 30 percent as a conservative anchor; lower it if your storage is essentially free and your cash has no immediate alternative use.
Can I negotiate the MOQ down?
Often yes. Common levers: a pilot order at mid-tier pricing, extended payment terms (net-60 instead of net-30), a joint order with another buyer, accepting the MOQ in exchange for a future tiered discount, or batching two SKUs onto a single production run. Suppliers care more about machine utilization than the exact unit count on any one PO.
When should I just walk away from an MOQ?
When sell-through exceeds six months at current sales velocity. Cash tied up for half a year on a single SKU exposes you to demand drift, seasonal misses, and the next supplier price change. Better paths: split the MOQ with another buyer, find a smaller supplier with a lower MOQ at slightly higher unit price, or substitute a different SKU.
Does the break-even point change as I scale?
Yes. Fixed order costs (freight, customs, broker fees) get amortized across more units as volume grows, so per-unit fixed cost drops and break-even units drop with it. Recalculate any time your fixed order costs shift — new freight carrier, a different port of entry, or a duty rate change. A break-even from six months ago may already be stale.
The other free calculators in the same family. Use any one without an account.
Reorder Point Calculator
When to reorder, with safety stock and lead time built in.
Stockout Cost Calculator
The full cost of running out — revenue, freight, churn.
Recipe COGS Calculator
Real cost per unit for makers, batch by batch.
Stocky migration guide
Move off Shopify Stocky before the August 31, 2026 sunset.
Last updated: June 2026
ReUp tracks your sell-through automatically.
Know your real daily sales rate before you commit to a bulk order — not a gut estimate.
