Type your starting budget. We split it into inventory, branding/packaging, marketing, and operating reserves — tuned to your business model and risk tolerance. Deterministic math, no AI guessing.
See what’s in Pro →Every budget is divided across four buckets — inventory, branding & packaging, marketing & ads, and an operating reserve — using deterministic rules, not AI. The starting split depends on the business model: hair bundles begin at 60% inventory / 12% branding / 18% marketing / 10% reserve, wigs at 55/15/20/10, tape-in and clip-in extensions at 50/15/25/10, and salon services flip to 25/15/30/30, where the first bucket becomes equipment and supplies and the last becomes operating runway for rent, licensing, and insurance. The pattern is deliberate: the more your model is “buy product, resell product,” the more of your money belongs in the first wholesale order from a vetted supplier.
Two inputs bend the base split. Risk tolerance shifts up to 7 points between marketing (offense) and the reserve (cushion) — high risk means a bigger launch push and a thinner safety net, low risk the reverse. The audience toggle matters more than most founders expect: if you already have followers, 8 points come out of cold marketing and move into inventory and branding, because pre-selling to a warm audience is cheaper than buying attention from strangers. If you don’t, the recommended order of operations is to spend 30 days building a presence around the niche beforethe wholesale order, so the stock doesn’t sit while you find your first buyers. Either way, the launch optimizer picks the supplier once the money is mapped.
The allocator flags the failure modes that kill starter hair businesses. A reserve under 10% gets called out because shipping, returns, and platform fees quietly eat 8–15% of revenue. A marketing slice over 35% triggers a margin check — spend without margin means profitable customers and an unprofitable business, which is why the companion advice is to map wholesale-to-retail margin in the pricing tool before ordering (under 30% and the model doesn’t work). Salon founders are pointed at the salon directory to see who already operates nearby. For the line items the reserve bucket summarizes — licenses, insurance, rent deposits — the SBA’s startup-cost worksheet is the standard reference for itemizing them properly.
No. The allocation rules are heuristics tuned to indie hair-business practitioners, not financial advice — real numbers depend on your channel, geography, and the terms you negotiate with a supplier. Treat the split as a defensible starting point to adjust, not a plan to follow blindly.
Bundles are the most inventory-heavy model we cover: the product is the business, margins live in the wholesale order, and branding matters less than for wigs. So bundles start at 60% inventory, wigs at 55%, extensions at 50%, while salon services flip the shape entirely — 25% on equipment and supplies with a much larger 30% operating runway for rent, licensing, and insurance.
The allocator will warn you. At that level even the inventory slice usually doesn't cover a starter wholesale order, so the recommendation is to wait until you have at least $1,500 — or run a dropship model until cashflow is steady rather than tying up everything in stock.
Selecting "I have followers" cuts the marketing slice by 8 points (it never drops below 5%) and moves that money into inventory and branding. Warm followers make cold advertising less necessary — the recommended play becomes remarketing and pre-selling to the audience you already have before you commit to stock.
Ready to see your own numbers split? Get started with Inches Pro →
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