Ecommerce Financial Model Template

Once assumptions are in, review the Revenue Model sheet to confirm the channel mix and growth trajectory look right. Then move to the Unit Economics sheet and check your contribution margin per order by channel. If a channel shows negative or near-zero contribution margin, that's a signal — either your CAC is too high for that channel or the fees are eating the margin. The Marketing Budget sheet is where you'll allocate spend across paid search, paid social, and other channels and see ROAS by channel. Spend time here if paid marketing is a meaningful part of your cost structure.

The other number that surprises most ecommerce founders is how much cash inventory consumes as you scale. If you're doing $50K/month in revenue at 40% gross margin and growing 20% month over month, you need to be buying inventory well before that revenue hits — and your supplier probably requires payment net 30 or net 60, with lead times of 4–12 weeks depending on whether you're sourcing domestically or overseas. A business generating solid operating income on paper can still run out of cash because inventory investment scales faster than receivables. The Inventory & COGS sheet models this timing gap explicitly so you can see cash needs 90 days ahead instead of discovering the shortfall the week you need to place an order.