An e-commerce financial model for investors, built on your numbers
Investors in an online brand want to see three things: that each order makes money after product, shipping and the cost of acquiring the customer; that growth doesn't depend on ad spend alone; and how much cash the inventory will tie up. StartupModel builds that model in Excel from your numbers. It covers visits, conversion, average order value, paid CAC, repeat orders, returns, fulfilment, inventory, and a full P&L, cash flow and balance sheet, with a low / base / high scenario switch and a Checks sheet. Full costs $349.
Download the sample model and inspect every formula before you buy.
How the revenue build works
Orders from new customers come from two sources:
- Non-paid traffic: website visits × conversion rate. Visits grow once a year.
- Paid ads: paid ads budget ÷ paid cost per order (CAC). The budget grows once a year.
Repeat orders = new-customer orders × a repeat multiplier: a simple steady-state way to show returning customers without a full cohort table.
Gross sales = orders × average order value (AOV), with AOV growing once a year.
Seasonality. One driver, the November–December uplift, scales the holiday months up and the other ten months down so the annual total is unchanged. Monthly cash and inventory then reflect the peak, and annual totals still equal the sum of the months.
Returns. Net sales = gross sales − returns and refunds (% of gross sales).
The same template also models physical stores. Set the store drivers to zero for a pure online brand, or see retail store financial projections if you also sell offline.
Unit economics, from the same drivers
Because orders, AOV, returns, product cost, fulfilment and CAC are all inputs, the model's unit economics are not a separate calculation that can drift from the P&L:
- Product cost is a % of net sales, so gross profit is after product cost only.
- Fulfilment and shipping is a cost per online order, and payment processing a % of net sales. Both are operating costs, so inventory isn't inflated by shipping.
- Paid ads spend and its share of online sales are reported every year.
- Repeat share of orders shows how much growth comes back without paying for it again.
Investors read the contribution of an order as AOV after returns, minus product cost, fulfilment, payment fees and the share of CAC. Every piece of that sits in the Inputs sheet with low, base and high values.
Inventory and cash
Inventory is held as days of product cost: the more days of stock you carry, the more cash sits on the shelf. Together with receivable and payable days, it flows through the cash flow statement and balance sheet. This is often where e-commerce plans break: revenue grows, gross margin looks fine, and the bank balance falls because stock is bought before it sells. The model reports year-end inventory and inventory turns.
Metrics the model reports
For each year (Dashboard in Full, P&L sheet in Light): visits, online orders, repeat orders and their share, online gross sales, AOV, paid ads spend and its % of online sales, net sales, gross profit and margin, product cost, year-end inventory and inventory turns.
What you get
Full — $349: Dashboard with the scenario selector and metrics; Inputs; monthly detail for traffic, orders, sales, costs, inventory, working capital, loan and equity; annual P&L, cash flow statement and balance sheet; headcount plan by role; Checks sheet.
Light — $149: Inputs, P&L with period detail and the metrics, Checks sheet: enough to test unit economics. Investors will usually want Full; upgrade later by paying the difference.
Before release, every scenario and year is recomputed independently in plain Python and must match the workbook within $1. That covers the statements plus online orders, online gross sales and stores open. The Checks sheet must show no FAIL.
Sample
The sample is a growing brand selling online with two stores: Full tier, three years of monthly detail, all three scenarios. Set the store drivers to zero to see a pure online business, then try halving the paid ads budget.
Download the sample model (.xlsx)
What investors push on
- Paid vs organic. If growth is mostly paid, what happens when CAC rises? Flip to the low case: CAC goes up and conversion goes down.
- Returns. Apparel and some categories return a large share of orders. Model your own rate, not a hopeful one.
- Contribution after fulfilment. A healthy gross margin can disappear after shipping and payment fees.
- Inventory cash. How much of the round goes into stock?
- Repeat behaviour. A believable repeat multiplier, ideally from your own data if you already trade.
Common mistakes
- Revenue from a traffic target without a conversion rate behind it.
- CAC averaged over all customers, hiding the real cost of paid ones.
- Shipping treated as product cost (or ignored).
- Inventory missing from the cash flow.
- Holiday peak spread evenly across the year.
Questions
Can I model a subscription box? Partly, through repeat orders. If your business is mainly recurring subscriptions, the SaaS model may describe it better.
Marketplaces and wholesale? Not modelled as separate channels. Pick your business type in the questionnaire; it will tell you if no template fits.
What if the model doesn't fit my business? Write to us within 7 days and we refund the full amount.
See also: Financial model for investors · All custom financial models