Profit Hawk
Free tool · For Amazon FBA sellers

Cash Tied Up in Inventory Calculator
for Amazon FBA sellers.

See how much cash is locked in this Amazon SKU, how many units sit above your target cover, and the dollars you could redeploy.

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What question does this answer
“How much cash is tied up in this Amazon SKU, and how much of it might be excess?”

Calculate your cash tied up

Enter the SKU's unit count, landed cost, and your target days of cover. We'll show what's working and what's excess.

units
$
units
days
Split sellable vs. inbound (optional)

Splitting the total lets you see how much cash is in stock that's already earning vs. cash that's still in transit. Sellable + inbound should equal the total units above.

units
units
Cash tied up in this SKU
$11,700
Excess cash tied up · 90 days of cover
Excess cash tied up
$3,900
Healthy cash at target
$7,800

What this meansPlain English

You're holding $11,700.00 of working capital with 90 days of cover — about $3,900.00 is sitting in excess units above your 60-day target.

Inventory cash kit

Free up the $3,900 sitting in excess inventory

Get a clean snapshot you can use to rank cash-heavy SKUs, spot excess cover, and decide where inventory dollars should move next.

  • PDF of this calc — $3,900 excess · 90-day cover · 60-day targetInstant
  • Multi-SKU template — rank cash tied up by productSheet
  • Extended calculator — multi-SKU excess cash ranking + target-cover scenariosTool
  • 5-day FBA playbook — inventory cash cleanup playbookCourse
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How it works

The formula, in plain English.

Total cash is straightforward — units times landed cost. The useful bit is isolating the cash sitting in excess units above your target days of cover.

Cash tied up =Units ×Landed cost
U · C
Total inventory value. All units you own × your true landed cost per unit. The honest measure of cash sitting in this SKU.
d̄ · T
Target units. Average daily sales × target days of cover. How many units it actually takes to stay in stock at your target.
U − d̄·T
Excess units. What you're holding minus what you need at target. If positive, this is inventory above plan.
× C
Excess cash. Multiply excess units by landed cost. The portion of working capital you could redeploy without compromising target cover.

Worked example

A mid-velocity FBA SKU with a recent PO landed.

Total units on hand1,800 units
Landed cost$6.50
Average daily units sold20 units
Target days of cover60 days
Current days of cover90 days
Target units1,200 units
Excess units600 units
Excess cash tied up
$3,900
Watch out for

Common cash-tied-up mistakes.

The math is simple. The traps are in the inputs — what to count, what to value, and what target to compare against.

01

Counting only sellable on-hand inventory

If you've already paid for units in transit or at AWD/3PL, that's cash that's tied up — not counting it under-states the working capital locked in this SKU.

Fix: Include FBA + AWD + 3PL + inbound when calculating total cash tied up.
02

Using ex-works COGS instead of landed cost

Factory price ignores freight, duty, and prep — sometimes 20–40% of the real per-unit cost. The cash tied up is the landed number, not the invoice number.

Fix: Use the true landed cost: COGS + inbound freight + duties + prep / labeling.
03

Setting one target days of cover for every SKU

A hero SKU and a seasonal one need different cover. Blanket targets either over-stock the long tail or strip the head down to nothing.

Fix: Tier the catalog (A/B/C) and set target days of cover per tier and per season.
04

Ignoring overstock until storage fees hit

By the time Amazon's long-term storage fee statement shows up, the cash has been idle for months and the SKU has often slowed further.

Fix: Treat 'excess cash' as a weekly KPI — promote, mark down, or remove before fees kick in.
05

Forgetting the opportunity cost

Excess cash isn't just sitting still — it's not funding a faster-moving SKU or a new launch. That's a real cost you don't see on a P&L line.

Fix: Compare excess cash to the next-best deployment, not to zero.
06

Pulling sales velocity from a noisy window

If your daily sales include stockouts, promo spikes, or Prime Day, the implied days of cover is distorted and so is the excess number.

Fix: Use a 30–60 day fully-in-stock window; strip promotional spikes if they won't repeat in the next cycle.
When this calculator isn't enough

Honest for one SKU.
Misleading across a catalog.

A single-SKU number is useful, but real cash efficiency lives across the whole catalog — and target cover changes by SKU, season, and channel.

  • Per-SKU targets at scaleDifferent SKUs need different target cover. A single global target either over-stocks the long tail or starves hero items.
  • Inbound + warehouse visibilityReal cash tied up sits across FBA, AWD, 3PL, and inbound shipments — manual tracking gets unreliable across hundreds of SKUs.
  • Seasonality & promo windowsCash 'excess' looks different in March vs. October for the same SKU — static targets don't adapt to demand cycles.
  • Long-term storage exposureCash tied up becomes aged-inventory risk above 271 days in FBA. Connecting the two needs a different layer of monitoring.
  • Cash impact across marketplacesUS, CA, UK, EU each have their own velocity and warehouse stack — total cash exposure isn't visible from a single marketplace view.
  • Replenishment decisionsCash tied up is the result of yesterday's PO decisions. Fixing it means changing tomorrow's — and that's a workflow, not a spreadsheet.
▲ Profit Hawk

Free up cash by fixing overstock, automatically.

Profit Hawk recalculates cash tied up across every SKU, marketplace, and warehouse — using your real sales, landed costs, and inventory positions — and flags the dollars sitting in excess units before storage fees and aged-inventory risk start to bite.

  • Cash tied up per SKU, marketplace, and warehouse
  • Per-SKU target cover by ABC tier and season
  • Replenishment that respects cash limits
  • Aged-inventory & LTSF risk forecasting
Start free trialSee Profit Hawk →
FAQ

Cash tied up, answered.

The questions Amazon sellers actually ask about cash efficiency, landed cost, and knowing when overstock is costing more than it looks.

What's a good target days of cover for an Amazon FBA SKU?
Most operators run hero SKUs at 45–75 days and long-tail items at 30–45 days, with seasonal SKUs flexing higher going into a peak and lower coming out. Above ~90 days you're risking Amazon long-term storage fees on slow movers; below ~30 days you're inside most suppliers' lead time and one delay means a stockout.
What should I include in landed cost?
Use your true per-unit cost to get a unit into Amazon: manufacturing/COGS, inbound freight, duties and tariffs, and any prep or labeling. Don't include Amazon's referral or fulfillment fees here — those are taken out of revenue, not held in inventory. The point is to value the cash actually tied up in stock.
Is excess cash the same as dead stock?
No — excess cash is just inventory above your target cover. It's a planning problem, not a write-off. Dead or aged stock is a subset: units that have been sitting so long they're at risk of long-term storage fees or forced removal. This calculator flags the early signal so you can act before it becomes a write-down.
Should I count inbound units in cash tied up?
Yes — if you've paid for it, it's cash that's tied up. The split toggle on this calculator lets you see how much sits in sellable units that are already earning vs. inbound units that haven't started selling yet. Both are real cash, just at different stages of recovery.
How does this connect to days of supply?
Days of supply is the symptom; cash tied up is the financial consequence. A SKU at 180 days of cover and a $5 landed cost is wildly different in dollars from one at 180 days and a $40 landed cost. Use them together to triage: days of supply tells you what to look at, cash tied up tells you what's worth fixing first.
Why does over-stocking cost more than I think?
Three things compound: the working capital sitting idle, the Amazon long-term storage fees that escalate at 271+ days, and the opportunity cost of cash you could be deploying into faster-moving SKUs or new launches. Many sellers treat overstock as 'sunk' until a fee statement reminds them it's not.
Should I include FBA fees in this calculation?
Not in this tool. FBA fulfillment and referral fees come out of revenue when a unit sells — they don't sit in inventory as 'tied-up' cash. Including them here would double-count. If you want to model fees, use the FBA Fee Estimator or include them inside your gross margin in the Stockout Cost Calculator.
How often should I recalculate this?
At every PO decision, and at least monthly for hero SKUs. Cash tied up moves with your sales velocity, lead times, and how big your last few POs were. Profit Hawk recalculates it continuously alongside days of cover, so you see the financial impact of every replenishment decision.
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▲ Profit Hawk

Want cash efficiency tracked across every Amazon SKU?

Profit Hawk recalculates cash tied up, excess units, and days of cover across FBA, AWD, 3PL, and inbound inventory — and feeds it back into replenishment so you stop over-ordering the wrong SKUs.

Start free trialSee Profit Hawk