Seven calculators that use the numbers importers really argue about — duty on the correct customs value, freight converted from the currency it was actually quoted in, and container capacity measured in millimetres rather than optimistic cbm estimates.
Each tool is independent — start anywhere. Values carry across pages in your browser only; nothing is sent to a server.
Goods + freight + insurance + duty + destination fees + import VAT, down to a cost per unit. Handles EXW, FOB, CIF and DDP quotes.
Open calculator →Build the full EXW → FOB → CFR → CIF → DAP → DDP ladder, or reverse a CIF quote back to FOB using the 110% insurance convention.
Open calculator →24–45ft, floor-loaded or palletised. Tries all six carton orientations, fills the end gap, and stops at the payload limit — not the cbm fantasy.
Open calculator →Chargeable weight per channel — 5000 for express, 6000 for air and postal, W/M for LCL — so you can see which mode your cargo actually suits.
Open calculator →Margin against landed cost, not FOB. Work forwards from price, backwards from a target margin, or down to the maximum buy price you can pay.
Open calculator →Turn a supplier's price ladder into effective cost per unit with tooling amortised — and the exact quantity where the next tier starts winning.
Open calculator → New · runs backwardsGive it the shelf price you can actually hold, strip the retailer margin, your margin, duty, freight and VAT — and it returns the highest FOB a factory can quote before the deal stops paying.
Open calculator →The same carton costs different money in different markets. Not because of freight — because the duty basis, the statutory levies and the certification all change. Each corridor is costed on a real 40ft container.
MFN + Section 301 on FOB. 40ft HQ from ~$2,400, 14–18 days.
Read the breakdown → CIF basis · 20% VATUK Global Tariff on CIF; no China–UK FTA. 40ft HQ from ~$2,850, 32–40 days.
Read the breakdown → CIF basis · 19% VAT (recoverable)EU Common Customs Tariff on CIF. 40ft HQ from ~$2,700, 30–38 days.
Read the breakdown → CIF basis · 5% VATGCC common tariff 5% on CIF. 40ft HQ from ~$2,100, 18–24 days.
Read the breakdown → CIF basis · 7.5% VATECOWAS CET 5/10/20/35% on CIF. 40ft HQ from ~$4,200, 32–42 days.
Read the breakdown → CIF basis · 16% VATEAC CET 0/10/25/35% on CIF. 40ft HQ from ~$3,900, 25–32 days.
Read the breakdown → FOB basis · 16% IVA (8% border region)General import duty on FOB; 2025–26 increases. 40ft HQ from ~$3,100, 22–28 days.
Read the breakdown →Freight per unit is decided by packing density, not by the freight rate. These ten categories have real carton specifications and a container costed line by line.
Freight $0.0265 per unit — 1.4% of the factory price. Landed 1.02× FOB.
Read the breakdown → Packed tight, slow to approveFreight $0.0145 per unit — 3.8% of the factory price. Landed 1.06× FOB.
Read the breakdown → DG rules change the freightFreight $0.107 per unit — 5.1% of the factory price. Landed 1.07× FOB.
Read the breakdown → Volume-limited, freight-dominantFreight $0.135 per unit — 15.9% of the factory price. Landed 1.22× FOB.
Read the breakdown → Weight-limited, tariff-exposedFreight $0.356 per unit — 5.5% of the factory price. Landed 1.13× FOB.
Read the breakdown → Volume-limited, plug-specificFreight $0.469 per unit — 6.3% of the factory price. Landed 1.12× FOB.
Read the breakdown → Volume-limited, freight-dominantFreight $23.08 per unit — 39.8% of the factory price. Landed 1.56× FOB.
Read the breakdown → Well-packed, certification-ledFreight $0.184 per unit — 5.1% of the factory price. Landed 1.12× FOB.
Read the breakdown → Tariff-led, size-curve riskFreight $0.335 per unit — 4.9% of the factory price. Landed 1.25× FOB.
Read the breakdown → Dense, high-value, scope-sensitiveFreight $0.0441 per unit — 1.4% of the factory price. Landed 1.09× FOB.
Read the breakdown →Every calculator here is a method with an interface on top. These guides show the method — the formula, a worked shipment, and the mistakes that break it.
The five-line landed cost method, one 40HQ to the US worked line by line, and the four charges most costing sheets leave out.
Read the guide → 7 min readWhy a CIF price is not FOB plus freight, how the 110% insurance formula changes the arithmetic, and how to reverse a CIF quote correctly.
Read the guide → 6 min readMargin and markup from the same sale, why the cost input has to be landed cost, and how to find the break-even volume that covers fixed costs.
Read the guide →Most online landed-cost tools take a duty percentage and multiply. That is the easy 20% of the problem, and it is where the errors hide.
The US, Canada, Mexico and South Africa assess duty on the FOB value; the EU, UK, Australia, Japan, India and most of Africa use CIF. On a $50,000 shipment with $4,000 freight at 12% duty, picking the wrong basis moves your duty by $480 — silently.
Goods are quoted in CNY, ocean freight in USD, destination charges in the local currency. Mixing them without conversion is the single most common arithmetic error in a hand-built costing sheet — and it usually flatters the deal.
A 40ft HQ holds 76.4 cbm on paper and about 82% of that in cartons. The calculator searches six orientations, fills the leftover length slab, and reports the payload ceiling — because dense cargo hits weight before volume.
Indicative China-origin rates to sanity-check a forwarder quote. Replace them with your own numbers — every calculator accepts overrides.
Run the landed cost first. Enter the supplier's Incoterm, the real freight, and the destination — you get a cost per unit you can defend line by line.
It depends on the destination, and it is not optional. The US, Canada, Mexico and South Africa use the FOB or transaction value — international freight and insurance are excluded from the customs value. The EU, UK, Australia, Japan, India and most African markets use CIF. Getting it wrong changes your duty by the freight cost multiplied by the duty rate, which on container freight is not small.
Only if you cannot reclaim it. A VAT-registered importer reclaims import VAT and should treat it as working capital, not cost. Sellers using marketplaces without a local VAT number, or shipping DDP into a country where they have no registration, carry it as a genuine cost. Use the toggle — the difference on a 19% VAT market can be a third of the total.
Usually because of pallets or dunnage. Our floor-loaded result assumes rigid cartons packed tight to the walls with a single end-gap refill. Real loads lose space to pallets, airbags, mixed SKUs and door clearance. Switch the calculator to palletised mode and you will normally land on the forwarder's figure.
Reference MFN rates at HS chapter level, reviewed October 2026, editable in every calculator. They exclude anti-dumping duties and country-specific additional tariff programmes — the US Section 301 lines, for example, which is why that field exists separately. Treat the output as a planning number and confirm the classification with a broker before you sign a price.
No. Every calculation runs in your browser. The only persistence is your own browser's local storage, so your inputs survive a page reload. There is no account, no server-side logging of your cost structure, and no upload.