Unit Economics (Revenue vs. Cost per User)

Purpose

What SellVia actually earns and spends per user — the number that tells you whether the business model works at the unit level, not just in aggregate.

Revenue Per User (asymmetric by role — important distinction)

• Merchant revenue = sum of platform_fees.amount_cents (2% of their sales) over a period — this is real SellVia revenue attributable to that merchant
• Creator revenue = $0, by design. Creators never pay SellVia anything (05. Payments → Platform Business Model & Pricing). Reporting "revenue per creator" as a number would be misleading — track GMV driven per creator instead (total verified Sale amount attributed to their links), which is the real measure of a creator's value to the platform, even though it isn't SellVia revenue directly.

Cost Per User

Two components, kept distinct rather than blended into one fuzzy number:

Directly attributable (precise, per-user):

• Paddle processing fees on their transactions (see Monthly P&L — this is a newly-tracked cost, not previously accounted for anywhere)
• AI/token costs tied to that user (from AI / Token Usage Tracking, filtered by related_user_id)

Allocated (shared costs, split evenly — simple starting model):

• Hosting/infra cost ÷ active users for the period. Deliberately simple (even split, not usage-weighted) for MVP — refine only if a specific user segment's actual infra load turns out to be meaningfully disproportionate, not guessed at upfront.

Net Contribution (Merchants Only)

Net contribution per merchant = Merchant revenue − (Paddle fees + AI costs + allocated infra share)

For Creators, there's no revenue side to net against — cost-per-creator is tracked as a standalone number, evaluated against GMV driven, not against a revenue figure that doesn't exist.

Open Questions

• Whether allocated infra cost should eventually be split Merchant vs. Creator differently (e.g. checkout/payment processing load is more merchant-transaction-driven than creator-driven) — reasonable to defer until there's real usage data suggesting the even split is meaningfully wrong

Update (2026-08-23): Paddle Removed, Swich Confirmed, Pakistan/PKR Only

Founder decisions, full reasoning in 02. Architecture Decision Log. "Paddle processing fees" (Cost Per User section) and the Net Contribution formula's "Paddle fees" both mean Swich processing fees now — same role in the math, exact rate unconfirmed pending a real Swich signup conversation (see 11. Automated Monthly P&L's 2026-08-23 update). All figures in PKR, not USD.