Features
Competition cost and break-even planner
raffleWP’s competition cost planner estimates how many paid entries you need to cover your entered costs. Model actual prize spend, instant prizes, delivery and other budgets alongside entry prices, bundle choices, fees and available paid capacity.
What you can do
Use actual costs
Enter the purchase cost of the main prize, an instant-prize budget, delivery, advertising and other costs. Keep advertised RRP separate from the amount your business actually spends.
Model bundles and order mix
Enter the expected share of orders at each valid quantity. The planner uses configured quantity discounts and fee assumptions, so larger baskets can change the expected return per ticket.
Compare sell-through scenarios
Inspect 25%, 50%, 75%, 100% and a custom scenario. Confirmed postal entries reduce saleable capacity, and an unreachable break-even target is identified explicitly.
Worked example: 1,000 tickets and £900 of costs
Illustrative calculation only. Assume 1,000 total tickets, 50 confirmed postal entries, £900 total entered costs and paid entries sold only in five-ticket orders for £10. Assume no tax, no refunds, and a gateway fee of 2% plus 20p per order. These are example assumptions, not recommended fees, tax treatment or an earnings forecast.
- Saleable capacity is 1,000 − 50 = 950 paid tickets. Postal entries remain entries but produce no ticket revenue.
- Each £10 order incurs an assumed 40p fee: 20p percentage fee plus 20p fixed fee. Estimated net income is £9.60 per order, or £1.92 per paid ticket before the £900 costs.
- The simple ticket calculation is £900 ÷ £1.92 = 468.75, rounded up to 469 tickets. Because this example sells only five-ticket orders, the first achievable covering point is 94 orders, or 470 paid tickets.
- At 470 paid tickets, net income is £902.40 and the difference after the entered costs is £2.40. At all 950 paid tickets, net income is £1,824 and the difference is £924.
If the costs rose above the maximum net income available from the paid capacity, selling every available ticket would still fail to cover them. Change one assumption at a time to see which part of the plan needs attention.
From a forecast to actual performance
Open Prize Performance → Planner, or the Cost planner link from a competition product. Enter zero for a cost that genuinely does not apply. Expected order mix means a percentage of orders, not a percentage of tickets, and the shares must add up to 100%.
The planner estimates revenue excluding tax and uses the store’s base tax calculation. Percentage gateway fees use the tax-inclusive payment; the fixed fee is spread across the expected order size. Actual destination taxes, gateway charges and buying behaviour can differ.
Actual performance reporting deducts item refunds. Amount-only refunds are allocated proportionally, and returned ticket quantities change when WooCommerce records returned units. Estimated original-payment fees remain after a refund. This helps avoid treating refunded revenue or postal tickets as new paid sales.
A selected cash alternative is reported separately; it does not replace the planner’s entered prize costs. Keep your budgets and accounting records current. The planner is a decision aid, not accounting software or a guarantee of profit.
Common questions
Can I use the advertised prize value as the cost?
Use the actual purchase cost in an actual-cost plan. RRP is a separate comparison and may be very different from the money spent obtaining and delivering the prize.
Do postal entries count as sales?
No. Confirmed postal entries reduce available paid capacity. They remain part of the competition’s entry records but are not paid ticket revenue.
Does break-even mean the competition will be profitable?
No. It is an estimate from your inputs and assumptions. Unplanned costs, refunds, taxes, fees and a different order mix can change the real result.
Build the rest of your workflow
Review bundles and entry capacity, understand cash-alternative reporting, and connect campaign links to attributed orders.
This feature is included with every current raffleWP licence. WordPress and WooCommerce are required. Optional addons are separate plugin downloads included with your licence.
Product information reviewed on 8 September 2026 against raffleWP 1.4.2 and the relevant addon documentation. Published by raffleWP.