About ML Tools
Free calculators and guides for online sellers, built by someone who sells on the same platforms you do.
Who's behind this
ML Tools is built by the founder of ML Necessities, a small e-commerce brand that sells bundles and everyday essentials, things like a stadium bag kit for football games, a travel sleep set, and a two-pack of toothpaste tube squeezers. We sell on Amazon (FBA), Walmart (WFS), eBay, TikTok Shop, and our own Shopify store. ML Tools is a separate, free site run by the same company, ML Necessities LLC in New York.
I've also worked in finance, so between that and running the store, I spend a lot of time looking at fee statements and asking where the money actually went.
Why this site exists
Every tool here started as a spreadsheet I built for my own store. I needed to know whether an item I found on Alibaba would still make money after Amazon's fees, whether a two-pack or a four-pack made more sense on Walmart, and why one month's Amazon settlement showed advertising eating almost all of our revenue. The spreadsheets worked, but opening them every time I priced something got old. So I turned them into calculators that run in a browser and put them online for anyone selling on the same platforms.
The guides came from the same place. Things like getting a GTIN exemption approved on Walmart, setting up Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment for Shopify orders, or switching every marketplace account over after forming an LLC took me hours of digging through help pages and support chats. Writing them down properly means the next person doesn't have to.
What you'll find here
- Seven free calculators for marketplace fees, break-even pricing, margin and markup, ad profitability, and sales tax.
- In-depth guides on fees, pricing, advertising, and running the business side of an online store, each with worked examples you can check in the calculators.
Nothing requires an account, and the calculators run entirely in your browser. Nothing you type in is sent anywhere or saved.
How the numbers are kept accurate
Fee rates come from the platforms' own published fee schedules and help pages, cross-checked against our own seller account statements where we can. Every calculator and guide shows the month the numbers were last checked. Marketplaces change fees with little notice, so we re-check rates whenever a platform announces a change and at least once a quarter. The full process is on the how we check our numbers page.
The calculators give estimates for planning a price, not quotes. Before you set a price on a tight-margin item, confirm the exact fee in Seller Central, Seller Center, or Seller Hub.
Get in touch
Spotted an outdated fee, found a bug, or want a calculator added? Email mlnecessities@outlook.com or use the contact page. I read everything and fix errors as fast as I can.