A cafe owner once asked me why her coffee club felt busy but didn't feel profitable.
We worked it through on the back of a receipt. She'd priced the membership at what felt fair, then paid GST out of it, then card fees, then served the members who came in twice a day. The ones she'd built the club for were fine. The others were costing her money every morning.
This calculator does that receipt maths properly, before you launch.
How to use the subscription price calculator
- Set the usage. How many uses a member is allowed each month (your cap) and how many the average member will really use.
- Add the cost to serve one use: materials, staff minutes at your loaded hourly rate, and delivery. Add any fixed cost per member, such as membership software.
- Add fees and tax. The payment fee defaults to 2%, so edit it to your provider's rate. Tick GST if you're registered and selling to consumers.
- Set your target gross margin and expected churn. Add the monthly overhead of running the program and, optionally, your normal retail price per use.
How the maths works
It's the floor price formula from our guide to how to price a subscription, solved exactly, because card fees are charged on the GST-inclusive amount.
Cost to serve = Uses × (materials + staff minutes ÷ 60 × hourly cost + delivery) + fixed cost Floor price (ex GST) = (Cost to serve + fixed fee) ÷ (1 − target margin − fee % × 1.1) Recommended price = Floor × 1.1 (GST), rounded to a familiar price ending in 5 or 9 Members to cover overhead = Program overhead ÷ gross profit per member Lifetime value = Gross profit per member ÷ monthly churn
The rounding allows up to 1% under the exact floor, because $69 beats $69.08 every time.
A worked example
The pre-filled numbers are the coffee-a-day membership from the guide. Each coffee costs $1.30 in beans, milk and cup, plus about 36 seconds of barista time at $38 an hour. The average member drinks 16 a month, with a cap of 30.
At a 55% target margin and 2% card fees, the floor is about $62.80 ex GST, or $69.08 with GST. The calculator recommends $69 a month.
Here's where the $69 goes: $6.27 of GST, $1.38 of card fees and $26.88 of coffee. That leaves about $34.47 of gross profit per member.
And the member who drinks all 30? They still earn the cafe about $10.95. Delete the cap (type 60) and that member costs you money. That's the job of a cap.
How to read the result
The margin row is your gross profit after GST, fees and the direct cost of serving. Overheads come after, which is why the "members to cover overhead" box matters. A program that needs 18 members to break even is a very different bet from one that needs 180.
The heavy-user line tells you whether your cap is safe. If a member using every allowance loses you money, lower the cap or raise the price.
The saving line is your value check. If members don't save something real against your retail price, they won't join. If they save 50%, you're probably leaving money on the table.
Lifetime value and the spend-to-win figure. In the book I suggest keeping acquisition cost to a third or less of lifetime value, so that's the number shown.
What to do next
- Turn the three tiers into a proper pricing table with the Pricing Table Builder.
- Read the full five-step method in how to price a membership.
- Check how GST applies to your plans in GST on subscriptions.
- Learn why three tiers sell the middle one in good-better-best pricing.
- Wondering whether a subscription suits your business? Talk it through in a free Subscription Profit Review.
Frequently asked questions
What margin should a membership or subscription have?
It depends on how much each use costs you. Traditional software has run at around 75–80% gross margin, while AI products sit much lower. Service and hospitality memberships usually need less, because staff time and materials are real costs. Set a target that leaves enough, after overheads, to justify running the program, then check the heavy-user line.
Should my subscription price include GST?
If you're registered for GST and selling to consumers in Australia, advertise the price including GST, because that's what they pay. One-eleventh of every payment then goes to the ATO, so calculate your margin on the GST-exclusive amount. Business customers often see prices ex GST, labelled clearly. This is general information as at October 2026.
What is breakage and should I count on it?
Breakage is the gap between what members are allowed to use and what they actually use. Pricing on expected use rather than the cap is normal and fair, as long as heavy members don't lose you money. Don't build a model that only works if people pay and never come. That's the old gym model, and it drives churn.
How should I set the cap?
Pick a cap that covers your best regular customers and stops the extreme cases. Panera dropped the word 'unlimited' from its Sip Club in August 2026 and capped drinks at 30 a month. A cap like 'one a day' keeps almost all of the appeal and makes the maths safe. Check the heavy-user line at your chosen cap.
Why does churn affect my price?
Churn doesn't change the floor price, but it changes what each member is worth. At 5% monthly churn, the average member stays about 20 months, so their lifetime gross profit is twenty times the monthly figure. That tells you how much you can afford to spend winning each one, and whether the program is worth the effort.
Built on The Subscription Playbook
This tool turns frameworks from Robert Coorey's book into something you can use in minutes. Robert is the author of The Subscription Playbook and a Director at BPAG Accountants. More about Robert.