MarginCOS is a margin recovery platform built for businesses navigating inflationary markets. Eight analytical engines work simultaneously across your portfolio — giving your CFO and Commercial Director real-time pricing intelligence, cost pass-through analysis, and commercial spend ROI from a single data upload.
Not adapted from a Western SaaS template — designed from the ground up for the realities of operating in high-inflation, high-volatility markets.
Not just portfolio averages — every metric, every recommendation, every figure is calculated at the individual product or service line level.
Works from your existing commercial data. Enter via the in-app form or bulk import a CSV. Live in hours, not months.
Every recommendation is quantified in local currency impact — not abstract percentages, but real recoverable revenue per action.
Most businesses reprice reactively — without visibility on competitor positioning, margin floor breaches, or willingness-to-pay headroom. The result is chronic under-pricing or poorly timed increases that erode volume without recovering the margin that was lost.
In high-inflation markets, the cost of pricing inaction compounds monthly. A product priced 8% below its willingness-to-pay ceiling isn't just leaving margin on the table — it's setting the baseline from which every future increase is measured. Most commercial teams know they're behind on pricing. They don't know by how much, on which products, or against which competitors. MarginCOS answers all three.
WTP Headroom by Product
Recoverable margin per SKU vs. WTP ceiling
Input cost inflation accumulates silently. Without cost pass-through analysis at the product level, absorbed costs compound into structural margin erosion — invisible on the P&L until inflation recovery is no longer viable.
Carthena Advisory's benchmarking across FMCG and manufacturing portfolios shows that commercially disciplined businesses sustain a cost pass-through rate of 70–75%. The median we observe in diagnostic work sits between 40–55%. That gap represents the margin being silently absorbed every month — not as a line item on the P&L, but as slow-moving gross margin compression that appears only in the quarterly review, long after the recovery window has closed. MarginCOS calculates this rate at the individual product level, classifies every SKU by recovery status, and quantifies exactly what closing the gap is worth in your local currency.
Recovery Rate Benchmark
Cost pass-through rate vs. Carthena Advisory benchmark
Gross margin looks healthy until logistics, distributor margin, trade credit costs, and rebates are deducted by channel — revealing that some routes to market are actively destroying value while appearing profitable on the surface.
The channel economics gap is a calculation most businesses have never done in full. Gross margin is measured at the portfolio level. Net contribution by channel — after freight, distributor take, trade credit financing costs, and promotional rebates — is rarely calculated at all. In markets where distributor margins run 18–25% and trade credit terms extend to 60–90 days, the difference between gross and net channel margin can exceed 30 percentage points on the same product. MarginCOS builds this waterfall for every channel and every partner, making the true economics visible for the first time.
Channel Margin Waterfall
Gross to net — every deduction itemised by channel
Commercial investment is the largest untracked cost line in most P&Ls. Without spend ROI visibility, promotional depth routinely exceeds margin — with no mechanism to catch it before the spend is committed.
Promotions are approved because they drive volume. But volume at what margin? Most commercial teams don't have the answer until the post-campaign review — which is too late. A promotion that requires 35% volume uplift to break even, but historically delivers 12%, is a margin destruction event approved in a budget meeting with no financial model attached. MarginCOS calculates the break-even uplift for every commercial action before the spend is committed, tracks actual delivery against it, and surfaces the historical ROI data needed to make the next investment decision with confidence.
Promotion ROI Matrix
Volume uplift vs. net margin impact — 4 live promotions
Buy 2 Get 1
Requires +35% lift to break even
✗ Destructive10% Off Modern
Break-even at +10% — delivered +15%
✓ AccretiveBundle Pack
Low-cost mechanic, high margin return
✓ AccretiveEnd Cap Display
Volume driven but not margin-accretive
✗ DestructiveBreak-even uplift calculated before spend is committed
Enterprise clients access four advanced analytical modules — portfolio rationalisation, forward scenario planning, commercial spend analytics, and partner performance scoring. These modules run on the same data and appear alongside the four core pillars.
Classify every item in your portfolio into a defend, reprice, or exit framework — based on margin contribution vs. strategic importance. Quantifies the margin at stake from underperforming items and names the specific candidates for action.
Model your P&L under multiple cost inflation scenarios simultaneously. See how margin erodes at different input cost levels — and what pricing actions are needed to maintain your floor. Board-ready scenario table to anchor commercial commitments.
Calculate the return on every unit of commercial investment — by category, by channel, by period. Surface which spend generates margin and which destroys it, before the next commitment is made.
Rank every partner and customer relationship by true net margin contribution — after logistics, credit, rebates, and service costs. Identify which relationships to protect, which to renegotiate, and which are structurally loss-making.
MarginCOS does not require an ERP integration. Clients enter their portfolio data directly into the platform — either product by product via the built-in form, or by uploading a CSV file for bulk import. A downloadable CSV template is available to guide data preparation. Most teams are live and running their first analysis within 48 hours.
Supabase Auth with secure session management
Database policies ensure complete client data separation
Your data is never visible to other clients
Built on Supabase with PostgreSQL and edge functions
Start with a 14-day pilot on your real portfolio data.