The manifest
Columns are found by header name (item, qty, msrp or retail, condition, category). A header containing “ext” or “total” is read as extended retail for the line; otherwise as price per unit. Lines with no retail price above zero are skipped.
Paste or upload a manifest, then click Find my max bid.
Result
Outcome at the bid evaluated
Break-even recovery rate
If recovery is better or worse than you assumed
| Recovery vs your assumption | Blended recovery | Expected net | Expected ROI | Chance of profit | Max bid at your loss limit |
|---|
Concentration
| Largest lines by retail value | Qty | Retail value | Share of manifest |
|---|
Contribution by line at your assumptions
Expected net revenue after damage, sell-through, fees and postage, less that line's share of total cost (split by retail value). Best and worst lines shown; the download has every line.
| Item | Class | Retail value | Net revenue | Cost share | Contribution |
|---|
How it is calculated
Per line: retail value times the recovery rate for its condition class, times the share of units that are sellable and sell in your window, less the channel fee and postage per unit sold. Simulation: each of the trials draws a pallet-wide recovery factor (lognormal with mean one) that moves every line together, a sell-through rate and a damage rate (beta distributions around your inputs), and a separate lognormal factor for each line. The 400 largest lines are simulated one by one; any smaller remainder is added with a normal approximation. Costs: hammer bid plus buyer's premium, freight and per-unit handling, then storage for the months held and the cost of capital on the cash tied up. Profit is net revenue minus that total, so the bid enters linearly and one simulation prices every bid. Max bid for a loss limit: the total cost equal to the loss-limit percentile of net revenue, converted back to a hammer price. Max bid for ROI or profit: the total cost at which mean net revenue leaves exactly your target. Recommended: the lowest of the three. Break-even recovery: the scale on all four recovery rates at which mean profit at the bid is zero.
Not modelled: price changes after listing, returns and chargebacks, unsold units' residual value (valued at zero), missing or wrong manifest data, shipping damage beyond the damage rate, sales tax, and how the auction is bid up by others. Correlation between items other than the shared market factor is not modelled. Unverified: tested against closed-form arithmetic and simulation identities, not against outcomes of real pallets; the default recovery rates are placeholders, not market data.
Common questions
How do I work out the most I should bid on a liquidation pallet?
Work backwards from what the pallet will realistically resell for. Take the manifest retail value, apply a recovery rate for each condition (new, open box, used, salvage), remove units that will not sell or arrive damaged, take off the resale channel fee and your postage, then subtract everything you pay on top of the hammer price: buyer's premium, freight, handling and the cost of holding stock until it sells. What is left is the most you can bid. This tool does that and, because recovery rates are guesses, runs 4,000 simulated outcomes so the max bid reflects how likely you are to lose money, not only the average.
What recovery rate should I use?
Recovery rate is the share of the manifest's retail price that a unit that actually sells fetches. The defaults (new 45%, open box 35%, used 25%, salvage 8%) are placeholders, not market data. Replace them with your own sold-listing history for similar goods. The sensitivity table shows what happens if you are 10% to 40% too optimistic or too pessimistic.
What does the Monte Carlo simulation do?
Each trial draws one pallet-wide market factor that moves every recovery rate together, a sell-through rate and a damage rate around your inputs, and an independent factor for every line so big items can miss on their own. Adding up the trials gives the chance of a profit, the expected net profit and the 10th, 50th and 90th percentile outcomes. The random seed is fixed, so the same manifest and inputs always give the same numbers.
What are the three max bids?
One is the highest bid at which the chance of losing money stays at or below the limit you set. One is the highest bid at which expected return on the cash you put in still meets your target ROI. One is the highest bid at which expected profit still meets your target in dollars. The recommended max bid is the lowest of the three, so it satisfies all of them.
What is the break-even recovery rate?
It is the blended recovery rate, as a share of retail, at which expected profit at your bid is exactly zero, keeping the mix of conditions in your manifest. If it is close to or above the recovery you assumed, the bid leaves no room for error.
Why does concentration matter?
Manifests often hide most of their value in a handful of lines. If the top five lines are half of retail value and one is missing, damaged or worth less than listed, nothing else can make up the gap. The tool shows the top five lines' share of retail value and the simulation gives each line its own independent uncertainty, so a top-heavy manifest shows a wider spread than an even one.
Is my manifest uploaded anywhere?
No. The file is read and analyzed in this browser tab. Nothing is sent to a server, there are no accounts or cookies, and the tool never stores your manifest.