A ₹99 price tells you what the customer pays. To understand what you earn, follow one order from checkout to delivery. Payment charges, model usage and the cost of reaching the customer belong in that calculation. Hosting and support still need a place even when you pay for them once a month.
SurpriseLinks is a useful example because its public checkout shows ₹99 and an order runs through a payment provider, an AI writing request and a hosted gift page. The worked example below combines the actual public price and one recorded model test with clearly labelled assumptions for the other costs. SurpriseLinks public order form.
Start with the amount that settles
Use the fee and tax shown against your payment in the provider’s settlement records. Keep them in separate columns so you can reconcile the result with what reached your bank. Your rates can depend on the payment method and agreement. Razorpay’s settlement guide.
For the example, suppose the payment provider takes a 2% fee and adds 18% tax on that fee. A ₹99 payment gives a fee of ₹1.98 and about ₹0.36 tax on the fee. That leaves ₹96.66 before the cost of creating and delivering the product. Those two percentages are inputs to the example. Your records supply the values to use for your business.
Measure model usage on a real request
One synthetic Birthday test on 29 October 2026 used 1,170 input tokens and 614 output tokens with GPT‑6 Luna. The output total included the reasoning tokens reported for that call. At the published rates of US$0.10 per million input tokens and US$0.50 per million output tokens, the test record’s cost estimate was US$0.000424. OpenAI’s GPT‑6 Luna pricing.
At an example exchange rate of ₹90 per US dollar, that works out to about ₹0.04 for that particular call. It was a test of an earlier prompt. For a live estimate, use your bill’s conversion rate and measure several current orders, including longer drafts, retries and any rewrite you offer. Add the cost of every call used to fulfil the order.
Put the numbers in one order sheet
Here is one way to account for a ₹99 sale. The hosting, acquisition and refund figures are sample inputs. Replace each with a figure from your records as soon as you have one.
Scroll the table sideways on a narrow screen.
| Line | Per order | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Customer payment | ₹99.00 | Public SurpriseLinks price when checked |
| Payment fee and tax on fee | ₹2.34 | Example using 2% plus 18% tax on that fee |
| AI writing | ₹0.04 | One recorded test at the example exchange rate |
| Hosting allocation | ₹6.00 | Example of ₹300 a month divided by 50 orders |
| Acquisition | ₹30.00 | Example marketing cost per paid order |
| Refund allowance | ₹2.00 | Example average allowance per order |
| Amount left | ₹58.62 | After these example lines, before other overhead, tax on the sale and your time |
If the same hosting allocation is spread over ten orders, it becomes ₹30 per order. That alone takes ₹24 out of the example. This is why it helps to run the sheet at two or three realistic sales volumes.
Account for work after checkout
Record time spent on lost-order messages, generation problems and refund reviews. A low payment price can still make sense if those jobs are rare and the product can handle most orders on its own. Even a few minutes of support per order can change the result, so include a value for that time when you decide what the product earns.
Use confirmed paid orders as the denominator for marketing cost. For refunds, track the money returned and any processing cost that stays on the settlement. If your sale price includes tax you owe on the sale, give that its own line. This keeps different kinds of cost visible in the same calculation.
Use a short weekly check
Record paid orders, settlement fees, model charges, ad spend and refunds for the same week. Add a fair share of recurring costs and your support time. The number left per order gives you a way to compare changes such as a longer AI draft, a new ad campaign or a better recovery flow.
Start by following one order through the product so you can see which events to record. A walkthrough of SurpriseLinks checkout and delivery.