Automatic duty lookup is not available yet. Enter a duty rate or amount you have confirmed, for example with your customs broker, to get real results. The worked examples use example rates.

How to split freight and import costs across SKUs

One freight bill covers every SKU in a shipment, but each SKU needs its own landed cost. The way you split the bill can change a SKU's freight per unit several times over.

Same bill, four answers

Take an ocean shipment with $1,850 of freight and three SKUs: a T-shirt, a yoga mat and a ceramic mug. These are the SKUs of the calculator's 3-SKU example.

SKU	Units	Cost / unit	kg / unit	m³ / unit
T-shirt	600	$4.20	0.18	0.0012
Yoga mat	200	$7.80	1.10	0.0090
Mug	400	$2.10	0.42	0.0018

Freight per unit, depending on how the $1,850 is split:

Split by	T-shirt	Yoga mat	Mug
Quantity	$1.54	$1.54	$1.54
Purchase value	$1.58	$2.93	$0.79
Weight	$0.67	$4.10	$1.57
Volume	$0.69	$5.14	$1.03

The yoga mat carries anywhere from $1.54 to $5.14 of freight per unit, on a $7.80 product. Split by quantity, the T-shirt pays more than twice its volume share and the bulky mat looks cheaper to land than it is. If you price from that number, the mat's margin is overstated and the T-shirt's understated.

Which basis to use

Pick the basis that matches how the cost was charged to you.

Volume when you pay for space: ocean freight billed per cubic metre, or a container that fills up before it gets heavy.
Weight when you pay by weight: air freight, courier and parcel services. If the carrier billed dimensional (volumetric) weight, enter that chargeable weight per unit rather than the actual weight.
Purchase value for costs that scale with value, such as cargo insurance or a fee charged as a percentage of the goods.
Quantity for flat charges with no better driver, such as a customs broker's fee, or when the SKUs are close in size and value.

You do not have to use one basis for everything. Split each cost on its own basis: ocean freight by volume, insurance by value, the broker's fee by quantity. The calculator's 3-SKU example does exactly that.

Duty is not split

Duty belongs to each SKU on its own: its customs value times its rate, or the amount your broker gives you. Do not put it into a cost pool and spread it, or a low-duty SKU ends up carrying another SKU's tariff. The merchandise processing fee and harbor maintenance fee are charged once per entry and worked out from the value of the goods, so add each once as another import cost and split it by value.

Check the split

The shares should add up to the bill exactly. The calculator splits in whole cents and gives leftover cents to the SKUs with the largest remainders, so they always do.
Compare freight per unit with cost per unit. A bulky, cheap SKU that carries almost no freight is a sign the basis is wrong.
When the final freight invoice arrives, compare it with the estimate before you reuse the numbers for the next order.

Open the 3-SKU example

The example splits ocean freight by volume, the broker's fee by quantity and insurance by value. Change a basis and the Freight column, each SKU's share of the bill, moves with it. Landed cost per unit appears once you run the example's duty lookup; its rates are examples, not current rates, and one line stays marked for checking. For your own shipment, enter a rate you have confirmed or your broker's amount. The exact rounding rules are on the methodology page.