What threshold actually pays for itself?
Set it too high and buyers ignore it. Set it too low and you absorb shipping on orders that were coming anyway.
Your numbers
What it actually costs you, not what you currently charge.
After COGS, fees, discounts and returns — before shipping.
Roughly what proportion of orders would need to grow to qualify.
Suggested threshold
$80
Workable range $77–$83. Set far above this and buyers ignore it rather than pursue it.
Contribution at current AOV
$28.16
Contribution at threshold, shipping absorbed
$27.70
Order value needed to break even
$81
A 27% lift on current AOV just to cover the shipping you'd absorb.
At a $80 threshold, absorbing $7.50 of shipping leaves you with $27.70 against $28.16 today — worse per order. Either raise the threshold, improve margin, or reduce shipping cost before offering this.
This models the threshold order only. Orders already well above it get free shipping you were previously charging for, which is a real cost this doesn't capture — check what proportion of your orders already clear the threshold before committing.
Calculated in your browser — nothing is sent anywhere, and nothing is stored.
The maths, so it isn't a black box.
Range from current order value
Thresholds work best around 20–30% above current AOV — close enough that adding an item feels worth it, far enough that it changes behaviour rather than rewarding it.
Contribution at the threshold, shipping absorbed
What you actually keep on a qualifying order once you're paying the shipping yourself, compared against what you keep today.
The break-even order value
How large an order needs to be for the extra contribution to cover the shipping you've stopped charging. If that's far above your suggested threshold, the offer costs you money.
Deliberately conservative
It models the threshold order only. Orders already above it get free shipping you were previously charging for — a real cost worth checking separately.
Questions about this calculation
Below that and most orders qualify already, so you're giving away shipping on purchases that needed no encouragement. Far above it and buyers treat it as unattainable rather than as a target. The range is a starting point to test around, not a law.
Terms used here
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Where we do this work
We'll build this model on your real data.
A free 30-minute teardown where we build your contribution margin model from actual figures and show you where the funnel leaks. Yours to keep either way.