As can be seen in this example, the gross margin is 90/150 = 60%. Generally given a selling price, the higher the cost of good sold the lower the product gross margin percentage.
Additionally our gross margin calculator can be used to estimate the cost of good sold and gross margin percentage for a product or alternatively our industry specific calculators are available for a range of business types.
To allow for flexibility, in the financial projections template the term cost of sales is used on the income statement . For an inventory based business it is preferable that this should be the same as the COGS described above. For a non-inventory based business, the cost of sales or cost of revenue line can be adapted to suit the business to include appropriate costs which are not necessarily incurred prior to the sale, such as credit card charges and customer distribution costs.
Chartered accountant Michael Brown is the founder and CEO of Plan Projections. He has worked as an accountant and consultant for more than 25 years and has built financial models for all types of industries. He has been the CFO or controller of both small and medium sized companies and has run small businesses of his own. He has been a manager and an auditor with Deloitte, a big 4 accountancy firm, and holds a degree from Loughborough University.
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Web hosting can seem like an abstract concept if you’ve never owned and operated a website, but it’s an integral part of owning a business in the 21st century. How well your web hosting service performs is critical, as is its ease of use, as you’re likely to find yourself maintaining it over a long period of time.
We’ll review what exactly hosting services provide, criteria to consider as you pick the best hosting service for your business and our top recommendations when it comes to finding a reputable hosting provider. Choosing the right host the first time around is ideal, as migrating a website to a new host can be an overwhelming process for those without experience.
Via Bluehost’s website
Plans starting at $1.99 per month
Free domain included
Via HostGator’s website
Plans starting at $2.56 per month
Via Web.com’s website
Plans starting at $2.75 per month
Before your content can be read and shared out onto the web or your products bought, your business and all its components need a home. Hosting services provide that home. Essentially, your website will be stored on a server with a dedicated amount of disk space for your files. Your files may contain written website content, code, email associated with your domain name and media like images or video.
Hosting also includes a certain amount of bandwidth, which dictates how much traffic can come through your website and inbox at any given time. There are different types of hosting like shared, dedicated, VPS and cloud hosting, any of which could be a good choice depending on your business’ needs.
Yes, you need web hosting if you’re trying to build a successfully branded business. Technically, you can build a website without hosting and you can run a business on various platforms without a domain name or dedicated hosting. With hosting, you can build a better brand for your business, customize the look and feel of your website, own your own data and mailing lists, and overall look and feel more professional to your customers.
A host lets you store your custom website’s data on the host server, and customers can go either directly to your domain or pull up information about your business when they type your domain name into their browser.
As you shop for a hosting service, it’s important to first identify your business’ needs. Then, you’ll need to find an adequate host that’s on-budget. Finally, you’ll direct your domain’s name servers to your chosen host.
When selecting a web hosting service, you’ll want to consider the company’s reputation, customer service and the current uptimes for sites it already hosts. You’ll also want to consider any specific needs your business may have, such as the number of email addresses you’re allowed or the amount of storage space your site needs.
For example, if you want a host that’s going to deliver the best email capabilities, InMotion hosting might be for you. If you’re looking for a host that’s going to provide the best opportunities for e-commerce growth, you may find yourself looking at GoDaddy . We’ve reviewed the best web hosting services for any number of situations to save you time on research.
It can be confusing to know which type of hosting you need when you’re new to web development. Here are the hosting types you may want to consider:
Though you can find free hosting, it doesn’t serve the needs of most businesses. Shared hosting is the cheapest option and might be sufficient for newer or smaller businesses. Otherwise, you may want to shell out a little extra money for VPS or dedicated hosting.
One aspect to take into consideration is whether your dedicated or VPS server will be managed by the host or if you’ll have to manage it yourself. You may find prices are a little lower if you manage it yourself, but you’ll also need technical expertise on your team to actually manage the server. If you don’t have that skill set in-house, you may find it’s worth it to pay more for the host to manage it for you.
If you purchase both your domain and hosting from the same company, it’s usually easy to connect the two using the host’s account dashboard. However, if you purchased your domain separately, you’ll need to do a little extra work to direct your domain to your host’s name servers. It sounds scarier than it actually is. Here’s how it generally works:
SHARED HOSTING PLAN | VPS HOSTING PLAN | DEDICATED HOSTING PLAN | |
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Hosting plan prices vary widely among providers. You can expect to pay anywhere between $6 per month and $16 per month for shared hosting, though there are often promotions for cheaper plans for the first month. Once you get into VPS and dedicated hosting, prices start to split more widely, especially depending on if you want a managed or unmanaged server.
While there are free hosting plans available on the web, your business is likely to outgrow these services quickly. It’s very often worth it to pay for hosting services. If you’re determined to go free, be sure to ask yourself these questions first:
Consider the following when you are selecting a web host:
SHARED HOSTING PLANS | VPS HOSTING PLANS | DEDICATED HOSTING PLANS | WEBSITE BUILDER AVAILABLE | DOMAIN PURCHASE AVAILABLE | SSL CERTIFICATE INCLUDED | |
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DreamHost plans usually come with unlimited bandwidth, though shared hosting plans don’t automatically come with email capabilities. If you want email with a shared plan, you’ll have to upgrade to the more expensive shared package, which does cap your traffic at 100,000 visitors per month.
Both shared hosting plans come with easy access to WordPress, as does the VPS hosting package. You can purchase your domain from DreamHost, too, though it will cost you extra money. One thing that won’t cost you extra, though, is your SSL certificate.
DreamHost’s dedicated hosting plans start on the more expensive side, though that’s partially because the smallest package has a six-core server. Other companies will start you with as little as two cores. The number of cores impacts how efficiently your website(s) will perform.
Mochahost is a bit cheaper than DreamHost in most scenarios, and all of its shared hosting plans come with unlimited bandwidth. Many of its shared hosting packages come with a free domain name. SSL certificates are also included for free, as are WordPress capabilities for website building.
All of MochaHost’s VPS hosting packages are managed, which means you’ll need less technical expertise to run them. VPS hosting is one area where Mochahost is more expensive than DreamHost – especially if you elect a Windows server over a Linux server. Its dedicated hosting plans are unmanaged and are considerably cheaper than Dreamhost’s. However, even when Mochahost offers more cores than Dreamhost, its servers’ storage capacities tend to be lower.
Namecheap offers truly cheap shared hosting plans. However, the storage capacities can be somewhat limited – as low as 20 GB in some instances. You do get a free SSL certificate for the first year, and depending on your top-level domain (or TLD ) you may also get a free domain for the first year. If you want a more desirable TLD like “.com,,” you’ll have to pay, though Namecheap will give you discounted rates.
Namecheap’s VPS hosting plans tend to be cheaper than DreamHost in particular, though compared to both DreamHost and Mochahost they do tend to offer less storage, and in some cases, less power. On the other hand, the pricing and performance for dedicated servers is hard to beat.
While you can find free hosting plans, they’re not typically the best option for businesses or professionals. You may have to use a subdomain rather than a custom domain, which looks unprofessional. Free hosting plans can also include unwanted ads, may have limited storage capacities and may limit your website’s e-commerce capabilities.
It’s usually worth paying for a shared hosting plan at the very least. Sometimes you can find a bundle that includes your shared hosting plan and your domain name registration all in one fell swoop. While not free, these bundle packages can be affordable.
If you have to ask how to transfer your site to a different host, you may want to enroll in some professional help in completing the process. When you migrate to a new host, you’ll need to backup all of your website’s files and download its database.
If you don’t complete these steps properly, you could lose important data needed to keep your website functional. The simplest part of the process is redirecting your domain’s name servers to the new host, which you can do with your domain registrar.
Blueprint is an independent publisher and comparison service, not an investment advisor. The information provided is for educational purposes only and we encourage you to seek personalized advice from qualified professionals regarding specific financial decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Blueprint has an advertiser disclosure policy . The opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the Blueprint editorial staff alone. Blueprint adheres to strict editorial integrity standards. The information is accurate as of the publish date, but always check the provider’s website for the most current information.
Brynne Conroy has over 12 years of experience writing about money, with a particular focus on women's finances and small business lending and credit products. Her debut book was an Amazon #1 New Release across multiple categories, and she has been awarded a PEN America grant for the body of her work in the field. Find her bylines on LendingTree, Her Agenda, GoBankingRates, and Business Insider, and features on MSN Money, Jean Chatzky's HerMoney, and Yahoo Finance.
Sierra Campbell is a small business editor for USA Today Blueprint. She specializes in writing, editing and fact-checking content centered around helping businesses. She has worked as a digital content and show producer for several local TV stations, an editor for U.S. News & World Report and a freelance writer and editor for many companies. Sierra prides herself in delivering accurate and up-to-date information to readers. Her expertise includes credit card processing companies, e-commerce platforms, payroll software, accounting software and virtual private networks (VPNs). She also owns Editing by Sierra, where she offers editing services to writers of all backgrounds, including self-published and traditionally published authors.
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The Money blog is a hub for personal finance and consumer news and tips. Today's posts include Burberry's woes, an end to certain perks for Barclays customers and a controversial new Heinz product. Listen to a Daily podcast episode on the winter fuel allowance as you scroll.
Friday 30 August 2024 12:33, UK
By Sarah Taaffe-Maguire , business reporter
It's likely to be one of the last few days that Burberry is included in the list of 100 most valuable companies on the London Stock Exchange - the FTSE 100 - and this morning the British fashion retailer is the biggest loser of the index.
Its share price is down 1.69%, the most of any of the 100 companies, as it's expected to be booted out next week due to share price tumbles. It had been a stalwart of the FTSE 100 for 15 years.
Oil is ending the week back above $80 - higher than most of the past few days - at $80.42 for a barrel of the benchmark Brent crude.
The pound has stayed high, or more accurately the dollar has stayed weak, with one pound falling just about below the more than two-year high of $1.32. Currently a pound buys $1.31.
By Sarah Taaffe-Maguire , business reporter
House prices are now growing at the fastest annual rate in nearly two years, the UK's largest building society has said, with rises expected to continue.
In the year up to August, houses became 2.4% more valuable with the average property costing £265,375, according to Nationwide.
But prices are still below the all-time highs recorded in the summer of 2022 by about 3%.
The annual increase and associated increase in buying demand is still "subdued by historic standards", Nationwide said.
Read the full story here :
The deadline for working parents of nine-month-olds in England to register for 15 free hours of government-funded childcare a week is tomorrow.
From 1 September, the free childcare offer is being extended to eligible parents with children of this age and older.
But with applications due by 31 August, families need to act now.
Check if you're eligible here - or read on for our explainer on free childcare across the UK.
Three and four-year-olds
In England, all parents of children aged three and four in England can claim 15 hours of free childcare per week, for 1,140 hours (38 weeks) a year, at an approved provider.
This is a universal offer open to all.
It can be extended to 30 hours where both parents (or the sole parent) are in work, earn the weekly minimum equivalent of 16 hours at the national minimum or living wage, and have an income of less than £100,000 per year.
Two-year- olds
Previously, only parents in receipt of certain benefits were eligible for 15 hours of free childcare.
But, as of April, this was extended to working parents.
This is not a universal offer, however.
A working parent must earn more than £8,670 but less than £100,000 per year. For couples, the rule applies to both parents.
Nine-months-old
On 1 September, this same 15-hour offer will be extended to working parents of children aged from nine months. From 12 May, those whose children will be at least nine months old on 31 August can apply to received the 15 hours of care from September.
From September 2025
The final change to the childcare offer in England will be rolled out in September 2025, when eligible working parents of all children under the age of five will be able to claim 30 hours of free childcare a week.
In some areas of Wales, the Flying Start early years programme offers 12.5 hours of free childcare for 39 weeks, for eligible children aged two to three. The scheme is based on your postcode area, though it is currently being expanded.
All three and four-year-olds are entitled to free early education of 10 hours per week in approved settings during term time under the Welsh government's childcare offer.
Some children of this age are entitled to up to 30 hours per week of free early education and childcare over 48 weeks of the year. The hours can be split - but at least 10 need to be used on early education.
To qualify for this, each parent must earn less than £100,000 per year, be employed and earn at least the equivalent of working 16 hours a week at the national minimum wage, or be enrolled on an undergraduate, postgraduate or further education course that is at least 10 weeks in length.
All three and four-year-olds living in Scotland are entitled to at least 1,140 hours per year of free childcare, with no work or earnings requirements for parents.
This is usually taken as 30 hours per week over term time (38 weeks), though each provider will have their own approach.
Some households can claim free childcare for two-year-olds. To be eligible you have to be claiming certain benefits such as Income Support, Jobseeker's Allowance or Universal Credit, or have a child that is in the care of their local council or living with you under a guardianship order or kinship care order.
Northern Ireland
There is no scheme for free childcare in Northern Ireland. Some other limited support is available.
Working parents can access support from UK-wide schemes such as tax credits, Universal Credit, childcare vouchers and tax-free childcare.
Aside from this, all parents of children aged three or four can apply for at least 12.5 hours a week of funded pre-school education during term time. But over 90% of three-year-olds have a funded pre-school place - and of course this is different to childcare.
What other help could I be eligible for?
Tax-free childcare - Working parents in the UK can claim up to £500 every three months (up to £2,000 a year) for each of their children to help with childcare costs.
If the child is disabled, the amount goes up to £1,000 every three months (up to £4,000 a year).
To claim the benefit, parents will need to open a tax-free childcare account online. For every 80p paid into the account, the government will top it up by 20p.
The scheme is available until the September after the child turns 11.
Universal credit - Working families on universal credit can claim back up to 85% of their monthly childcare costs, as long as the care is paid for upfront. The most you can claim per month is £951 for one child or £1,630 for two or more children.
Tax credits - People claiming working tax credit can get up to 70% of what they pay for childcare if their costs are no more than £175 per week for one child or £300 per work for multiple children.
In an update to our previous post, NatWest says the issue with its banking app that left customers unable to access some services this morning has been fixed.
A NatWest spokesperson said: "Some customers experienced difficulty in making payments via the mobile app this morning.
"This has been resolved and customers can make payments as normal. We're sorry for any inconvenience caused."
NatWest says it is working hard to fix an issue which has left customers unable to make payments through its app this morning.
Users have reported receiving an error message and being logged out when trying to approve a transfer, while others say they can't access the app at all.
The most recent data from outage monitor DownDetector shows there were nearly 1,020 complaints about issues with NatWest at 7.40am this morning.
A NatWest spokesperson said: "Some customers have experienced difficulty in making payments via the mobile app this morning. We're working to resolve this as quickly as possible and we're really sorry for any inconvenience caused."
Customers are still reportedly able to make payments via online banking.
Barclays customers will stop receiving certain perks on their Blue Rewards accounts from Wednesday.
The most noticeable being scrapped is the free £5 that pops into their accounts every month just for having at least two direct debits.
All other product cash rewards for holding a Barclays mortgage, loan or life insurance are also going.
The last cash rewards payments will be made on Tuesday.
However, the £5 account fee is remaining.
What new perks are replacing the free cash?
Blue Rewards members can now access an Apple TV+ subscription worth £8.99 a month, and catch every Major League Soccer match with an MLS Season Pass subscription worth £14.99 a month (during the season). Both subscriptions are already available to activate via the app.
Should you cancel?
If you don't fancy either of the above, the account may not be worth the fee.
However, read all the other T&Cs as Blue Rewards comes with other benefits, such as access cashback rewards of up to 15%.
You also have access to savings accounts such as the Rainy Day Saver, with a decent 5.12% AER up to £5,000. This would easily cover the £5 fee but consider whether you can find an as good, or even better rate, for free elsewhere.
What do you need to no now?
Barclays is advising customers: "If you're happy with these changes and still want to be a Blue Rewards member, you don't need to do anything.
"If you feel Blue Rewards is no longer right for you, you can cancel your membership. If you'd like to cancel before the changes happen, you'll need to do it in the Barclays app or Online Banking on or before 3 September.
"If you cancel before 5pm on the last day of a month, we won't charge you the next fee."
You can cancel by logging into the app, clicking on "rewards" and then "cancel Blue Rewards".
Every Friday we take an overview of the mortgage market, hearing from industry voices and getting a round-up of the best rates courtesy of the independent experts at Moneyfactscompare.co.uk .
The daily repricing down of mortgages we've seen in recent months has finally settled, says Moneyfacts finance expert Rachel Springall, with "very few" lenders making changes.
She says that despite a downward shift since summer began on the back of interest rate cut expectations, "borrowers looking to remortgage right now will find the average overall five-year fixed rate is much higher than it was back in August 2019".
Back then it stood at 2.84% - now it's 5.22%, though lower rates are available to many customers.
The five-year rate is lower than that available over two years - the current average there is 5.58%.
As we reported earlier this week, five-year fixed are slightly ahead of two-year deals in popularity, according to the LMSMonthly Remortgage Snapshot . Just 2% of people are going for trackers - which as things stand are not offering value compared with fixed rates, though they may over time of course.
The snapshot also showed a rise in completions and instructions, the latter up a not insignificant 26%.
Honing in on remortgagers, Moneyfacts has looked at the best rates on offer now...
The comparison site also looks at what it calls "best buys" - which considers not just the rate, but other costs and incentives. These are their top picks this week...
Heinz has announced its first pasta product launch in a decade - a canned version of the beloved Italian dish spaghetti carbonara.
People's takes on carbonara can sometimes stir up controversy online - cream or no cream? Pecorino or parmigiano? Only egg yolk or also egg white?
But Heinz says it has "come to the rescue" with its "fail proof" canned carbonara, which takes the "drama" out of trying to perfect the recipe.
It's had a mixed response online, with one user on X going as far as to call it an "abomination" and others saying they're keen to try it.
The food manufacturer is trying to appeal to a younger generation with its latest launch - it said its research shows 32% of the Gen Z cohort want their food to be "fast and convenient".
Alessandra de Dreuille, Kraft Heinz meals director, said: "We understand that people are looking for convenient meals that are effortless to prepare, and our new spaghetti carbonara delivers just that.
"It's the perfect solution for a quick and satisfying meal at home."
Complaints about financial products soared by around 70% in the spring compared with a year earlier, the Financial Ombudsman Service has said.
Some 74,645 cases were raised with the service between 1 April and 30 June - up from 43,953 over the same period in 2023.
Around half the complaints now come from professional representatives, who tend to take commission from any payout, the ombudsman said.
"Whilst professional representatives have an important role to play, they must ensure that their cases are well evidenced and have merit," Abby Thomas, chief executive and chief ombudsman, said.
The opening of Jeremy Clarkson's pub in Oxfordshire has sparked a rise in searches for homes near by, according to Rightmove.
The TV presenter's pub in Asthall, near Burford, reopened to the public on 23 August.
The number of searches for properties in Burford the following day was the highest in more than a year, and 63% higher than a year ago across the bank holiday weekend, Rightmove said.
The average asking price in the area is £537,827.
Unilever says it is trialling the use of plants and flowers that "don't make the grade" to create fragrances for its products.
The consumer goods giant is collaborating with scientists at the University of Nottingham to get the pilot under way, with oils already being extracted from flowers such as petunias, roses and marigolds.
Unilever head of biotechnology Neil Parry said unwanted plants "still have valuable materials with functional benefits".
The move is aimed at being cost and energy effective, as well as a way to reduce waste.
Two big UK supermarkets have announced they're cutting prices on hundreds more products - with one aiming a "big bazooka" at its rivals.
Online grocer Ocado said 450 more of its products were being reduced in price by an average of 17% from yesterday.
Meanwhile, Morrisons announced it was lowering the price on more than 2,000 products in store and online for people signed up to its More Card loyalty scheme.
It comes amid an explosion in popularity for loyalty schemes such as Clubcard and Nectar, which sees members pay less for some products than non-members.
Morrisons also said hundreds of products would be price-matched to Lidl and Aldi.
"Today's move represents our single biggest investment in loyalty and pricing for many years," Alex Rogerson, group marketing director, said.
"Driving strong value for customers remains our number one priority and today we are getting the big bazooka out and slashing the prices on over 2,000 products for More Card customers."
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Life insurance is as complicated as the policyholders and beneficiaries who use it. That means there's no single "best" life insurance company. Instead, you can find the best option based on what you want or what you prioritize.
Business Insider's editorial team has independently reviewed over 30 life insurance companies to find the best, based on insurance premiums, policy terms, overall benefits, and customer satisfaction.
While there is no such thing as the objective best life insurance policy, you will be able to find the best insurance policy for your specific needs. Here are our picks for the best life insurance companies, whether you want to use your life insurance policy to build wealth through cash value or you're just looking for a term life insurance policy .
Here are Business Insider's picks for the top life insurance companies.
Northwestern mutual life insurance.
Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance offers a range of products, including term life, whole life, and universal life. It has a 790/1,000 J.D. Power customer satisfaction rating and an A++ AM Best financial strength rating.
Northwestern Mutual's whole life insurance is available for people up to 85 years old. It's available for purchase with several riders, including accelerated care benefits, waiver of premiums, and additional purchase benefits. The whole life insurance policy particularly stands out for the dividends it pays out to whole life insurance policy holders on an annual basis. The company is expected to pay $7.3 billion in 2024.
Read our Northwestern Mutual life insurance review .
Guardian life insurance .
Guardian life insurance has a 743/1,000 J.D. Power customer satisfaction rating and an A++ financial strength rating. It offers term, whole, and universal life insurance. Guardian stands out for its no-exam life insurance, offering up to $3 million in coverage, which is high for the industry. You can also convert Guardian's term life insurance to a whole life insurance plan.
Read our Guardian life insurance review .
State farm life insurance.
State Farm Life Insurance is consistently one of the leading life insurance companies in the industry, receiving the best life insurance ranking in J.D Power's Individual Life Insurance Study, with a score of 843/1,000. The company is also ranked A++ with AM Best for its financial stability with term, universal, and whole life insurance options.
All State Farm policies have to be purchased through a State Farm agent. Your agent can help you bundle and save or buy one policy. State Farm is also among the companies offering "survivorship universal life insurance ," which means the policy covers two people, and it kicks in after the second person dies. Couples looking to maximize their death benefit for beneficiaries with one premium payment each month may enjoy lower overall costs.
State Farm agents can run quotes and compare options to find the right plans for each applicant. The range of options, discounts, and familiar name all contribute to the popularity of State Farm's life insurance.
Read our State Farm life insurance review .
Prudential life insurance.
Prudential Life Insurance is available in all states except New York. New York residents can buy the Pruco Life of New Jersey VUL Protector plan. This plan allows buyers to pull money out of their plan to pay for nursing home expenses. Cash value policy premiums are fixed, so you won't have to worry about extra costs later on. Internal costs are low, which minimizes risk. Due to age, many older adults want a safe investment option for their money. Prudential VUL Protector invests to avoid loss. That also means you're not as likely to see big increases in your available funds outside of what you deposit.
Read our Prudential life insurance review .
Brighthouse financial life insurance.
Brighthouse Financial Life Insurance offers term and indexed universal life insurance options. Its hybrid permanent life insurance policy SmartCare offers, is an indexed universal life insurance that offers long-term care benefits through a collection of riders, including an LTC accelerated death benefit rider.
Brighthouse's other policies are also worth a look. It offers a one-year term life insurance policy that can be converted into a whole life policy. It also offers traditional term life insurance with 10, 20, and 30-year terms and up to $3 million in coverage.
Another benefit of Brighthouse Life Insurance is that most of its policies do not require a medical exam, as long as you get regular checkups. However, for patients over 60 who have not seen a doctor within two years, you may have to take a short physical exam.
Read our Brighthouse life insurance review .
Allianz life insurance.
Allianz Life Insurance plans are geared towards high-income adults looking for more tax-free income. Allianz offers a 40% multiplier bonus with a 1% annual assets charge. In short, the professionals managing your investments take 10%.
Overall, your investments would pull in an extra 14%-1% asset charge. This means you end up with 3% more than what you deposit every year your life policy is active. This plan offers strong returns when using a life policy to supplement your retirement savings. Allianz also offers specialized plans to grow your income by as much as 20% according to some estimates.
Of note: Allianz also offers plans for foreign nationals, including those with H-1B visas.
Read our Allianz life insurance review .
New york life insurance.
New York Life Insurance agents go through extensive training before they ever hit the sales floor. What does this get you? Policies vary widely, and New York Life offers both large and small payouts. Some policies have significant penalties for early withdrawal, but taking a loan offers more options.
Whatever your questions, New York Life agents are trained to offer comprehensive support giving you accurate information about its policies every time. The company comes in at position eight in J.D. Power's latest life insurance customer satisfaction study, with a 794/1,000.
Read our New York life insurance review .
North american company.
North American Company offers term policies alongside accelerated death benefits for critical, chronic, and terminal illnesses and more. The company allows one conversion on a 20-year policy at 15 years or 70 years old (whichever is earlier). The conversion cannot happen later than the five-year marker regardless of which policy you choose or the length. North American Company also offers a term policy with a lower premium renewable up to the age of 95 for qualifying insureds.
While there's many different types of life insurance policies , broadly speaking, there are two types of life insurance: temporary and permanent. Let's go over each in detail.
Temporary life insurance is often called term life insurance. This type of policy covers you for a set amount of time before expiring, usually between 10-30 years. If you pass away after your policy expires, your family won't receive any benefits. Additionally, your policy won't accrue cash value like a permanent policy. That said, some term life insurance policies offer a conversion from term to whole life insurance, so you can extend your coverage.
Because its benefits aren't guaranteed, term life policies are generally cheaper than permanent life insurance. That said, the vast majority of term life insurance policies never pay out. on
Permanent life insurance is an umbrella term for a variety of life insurance policies that will insure you indefinitely and guarantee a payout as long as you maintain your policy. Policy types that fall under permanent life insurance includes:
These policies vary widely in purpose and intended buyers, but all guarantee death benefits to your loved ones. Some permanent life insurance policies, like whole, universal, and variable have a cash value component , which you can use as a savings tool or to leave your heirs a larger death benefit.
Unlike homeowners or auto insurance, which is required by most states, life insurance is a voluntary purchase. As a result, it's not as easy to purchase life insurance online. As a result, finding the best life insurance for your needs starts with finding a trusted insurance agent. Agents can help buyers figure out what they need and when they need it.
However, there's a few things you can consider before approaching an agent:
Some companies will sell you a policy for your child as soon as they're born. While this may seem morbid, early sign-up means lower rates for a policy your child could enjoy in the future. Regardless, early sign-up equates to more policy for lower premiums and a higher likelihood of acceptance. At 20, you may be healthier and be able to pay into the policy for a longer period compared to when you're 50 with more age-related conditions.
As a general rule, never agree to more than you can afford. For the average life insurance agent, their job is to sell you a large policy with a large commission. Consider not only how much you make now, but how likely your current income is to continue. If you work on a project basis and your project is scheduled to end in 12 months, you may want to reconsider a policy premium outside your monthly savings.
How much are you prepared to buy? Some people only want a small policy to cover funerals and other end-of-life expenses. Others build a life policy into their retirement plan. Whatever direction you're going, involving a financial planner could help you make the right decisions. Depending on the carrier, customers can also compare set limits with index universal life policies, which set no limit. These policies never expire, and the value builds over the entirety of your life.
Living Benefits
Life happens unexpectedly. You could be healthy one day and in the hospital the next. Many life policies offer living benefits. These allow you to draw a limited amount out of your policy to cover medical and other bills you cannot pay while sick.
Much like a 401(k), many life insurance policies have penalties for early withdrawal. No matter what policy you want, this question is critical to an informed decision. It's a question of how early you can withdraw and how much you'll lose from the total to have the money in 10 years instead of 30 or after death.
Some policies require insured parties to pay premiums for at least one year before any significant payout would be available. Suicide exclusions are common. Even with no medical exam policies, the company may still do a check for known conditions. An insurance company has to mitigate its risk.
Flexibility
Once you've been denied a life insurance policy, a mark goes on your record. No matter the reasons, other insurance companies may deny you coverage based on the first denial. So consider your whole situation and choose your policy carefully before you submit any applications. Some policies have greater flexibility if you lose your job or otherwise can't make payments. Others will lapse if you miss even one payment.
Payment Type
The best of life insurance for you will depend on how you want to pay for it. Universal policies have flexible premiums and adjustable death benefits, which may be appealing if you're worried about periods of financial hardship.
Even within whole life or term life insurance policies, customers have the option to choose guaranteed fixed or variable rates. Some have guaranteed payouts, but you'll need to ask your agent for details.
What is your intended use? Why are you shopping for a life insurance policy in the first place, and what are your goals? Many successful financial planners also have a background in life insurance. So while they may not be able to find you a specific life insurance policy, financial planners can help you set out a blueprint for your purchase.
In life insurance, it's easy to get "sold a bill of goods." Many life insurance agents pass a state test to be thrown into the deep end. Agents sell the company product, but not all know the products. In this vein, we look at the products each company offers. We also look at agent training.
A good life insurance agent may not volunteer all facts upfront. But a company's agents should answer questions about its products accurately and in a way the average consumer can digest. Agents should be able to inform you about the long-term benefits and limitations. This will help customers find the right policy for their long-term plan.
We consider affordability, policy sizes available, and performance for a comprehensive assessment. If you can, we recommend also working with a financial advisor to make a plan for your future with life insurance.
Read more about how Business Insider rates life insurance .
To inform our choices for the best life insurance companies, we spoke with the following experts:
Paul LaPiana, Head of Product at MassMutual
"There are different approaches to determining how much life insurance you need. One is the 'human life' approach, which estimates the current value of your future earning potential. Another is securing specific coverage to pay off debts such as a mortgage or provide for the education of children. A comprehensive protection plan should provide the right amount of coverage over the course of your working life and into retirement."
Barbara A. Pietrangelo, Chair of Life Happens
"There is no one-size-fits-all life insurance policy because everyone is different. One way to get a rough estimate is to multiply your income by 10 to 15; another is adding $100,00 to that amount, should you have a child and anticipate college education expenses.
Your best bet is to talk to a financial professional or use the Life Insurance Needs Calculator on LifeHappens.org to analyze what's right for you."
Wykeeta Peel, Corporate Vice President & Market Manager African American Market Unit at New York Life
"As you consider what policy best meets your needs, it can help to answer four key questions: First, how much death benefit do you need? Second, how long will you need that coverage? Third, what is your budget (or how much monthly premium can you afford to pay?), and finally, what is your investment risk tolerance?
To determine how much death benefit makes sense, it's helpful to think beyond using life insurance to cover funeral expenses and consider whether anyone is relying on the policy owner's income to maintain a lifestyle, pay rent or a mortgage, or fund a child's education and for how long.
There are various rules of thumb regarding the right amount of Life insurance coverage. Some tips can be found online, but they only provide an estimate and don't necessarily factor in an individual's specific needs. In my opinion, human guidance, powered by technology, is required. Basically, it comes down to how much money your loved ones would need to remain on firm financial ground if your earnings were no longer in the picture and that is different for everyone."
"Increased accessibility through digital and other channels as well as through underwriting enhancements. Increased tailoring of products and features. And an increased emphasis on health and wellness programs."
"Having enough qualified insurance professionals to walk potential buyers through the multiple benefits of life insurance will be pivotal to the growth of the industry. Education is a key factor here, as professional agents also need to be able to explain life insurance and its benefits in an easy, digestible way, especially when there are so many misconceptions about life insurance."
"The need for life insurance is greater than ever. In fact, a recent New York Life Wealth Watch survey found that 37% of adults have been thinking about life insurance more often these days – and half of adults report that financial products that provide protection (50%) and reliability (50%) are more important now compared to last year. This may be especially true for middle-market and Cultural Market families.
Our organizational structure of having Cultural Market agents embedded in the communities where we live and work allows us to understand the needs of diverse communities and develop solutions that resonate with them."
"It is difficult to say with any certainty how healthy you will be years from now. That's why securing life insurance, and insuring your insurability, today, when you are the youngest you'll ever be again, and perhaps your healthiest is a wise decision."
"Do you love someone? If the answer is yes, then life insurance is certainly something you should consider. Many buy gifts and experiences to express their love, but haven't considered that life insurance is just another way to say I love you. Nothing says support like ensuring your family's financial security and peace of mind."
"If you have someone depending on your income, you should consider purchasing life insurance. A death benefit from a life insurance policy can replace income from the loss of a breadwinner, ensure a family can stay in their home, fund educational or retirement expenses, address debt and so much more.
A life insurance policy can also help you grow your family's wealth over time. Once the risk of an unexpected loss has been managed, you can begin to think more broadly about your family's financial future. Life insurance can enable your mindset to shift from death to growth."
"With life insurance, you are securing a future commitment that may be decades away. Research the company behind the policy to ensure it has high financial strength ratings, longevity, and an excellent track record of paying claims."
"When looking for an insurance agent or company, be sure to do your research. When comparing companies, be sure to remember that the policy features that fit you and your loved ones best is the most important factor. Don't automatically assume you should buy from the higher-rated company.
If the policy from the other company has more of what you're looking for, it might be the better choice. If you're unsure where to start, try the Life Happens Agent Locator to find an insurance professional in your area."
A whole life insurance policy has a schedule of payments to earn the total death benefit. Past a certain waiting period, you'll get the full payout if something happens. However, you can also pay it off entirely if you live longer or make larger payments early. In either of these situations, you are no longer required to make further payments to keep the policy active.
There isn't one best life insurance company, because the best option for you will depend on the type of policy you're looking for. It's best to work with a qualified insurance agent to help you find the best coverage. If you're deciding between multiple similar options, it's also worth consulting J.D. Power's life insurance customer satisfaction study . The latest study ranks State Farm as the top pick for individual life insurance, outpacing Nationwide by three points.
Each situation is different and requires a knowledgeable life insurance agent to assess your best options. Bring all your questions and the coverage you're looking for to an insurance agent near you to explore your options.
No, medical exams aren't necessarily required for life insurance. Some life insurance policies are advertised as "no medical exam." This doesn't mean the insurer won't ask you about known conditions or look at medical records. You can find our guide on the best no exam life insurance here.
The most popular type of life insurance is term life insurance. Term policies are only good for a specified term that you select when opening the policy — the fact that they don't last forever also makes these policies the most affordable. That said, a very slim minority of term life insurance ever pays out.
For more audio journalism and storytelling, download New York Times Audio , a new iOS app available for news subscribers.
In the united states, many say tipping is expected in more places these days. here’s how tipping culture exploded..
This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.
Hello. Excuse me?
My name is Sabrina. This is Claire. We’re journalists. Could we ask you a question?
You just did.
[LAUGHS]: Another one. [UPBEAT MUSIC]
What is your view of tipping?
I think it’s become excessive. Whatever they do, they got that jar and they’re wanting you to put a tip in there.
They have the iPad. And it’s like, all right, how much you want to tip? And it’s like you bought a $5 coffee. It’s like, all right, well, tip $3.
There’s a lot of pressure. You feel like you have to tip. And I feel like people are watching you at that moment.
Yeah, yeah. I feel a lot more pressure to tip more. Wages haven’t kept up, so I feel like I should be tipping more. And it’s annoying because my wages haven’t gone up either, so it’s annoying.
The other day I just bought a loaf of bread, and the tip thing came up, gave me the option of 15 percent or 20 percent. Do I really have to tip somebody to buy a loaf of bread?
I went to the self-service machine. And it was like, add a tip. And it’s like add a tip for what? I’m the one that did the work, you know what I’m saying?
You’re like, I should be tipping myself.
I actually am a tip worker. We’re literally paid less wages in order for the customers to pay us.
What do tips mean for you and your work?
It’s how I feed my family.
Yes. 100 percent.
Unless you work in the service industry, you don’t really understand how crucial tipping is.
Tips mean a lot. They are 60 percent, 50 percent of my paycheck. And my hourly is pretty low to begin with.
Whatever I get at the end of the night goes towards dinner. Or for example, I didn’t have money for sanitary pads one time. And then that tip, grabbed it.
I feel like a lot of people feel like you did nothing for me. You just put a cup on the counter and I took it. Like, why should I pay you extra for that?
What do you say to someone who says that? You didn’t do anything, you just put my food in a bag.
If you knew what my paycheck looked every week, you would think different. Or maybe not, maybe you don’t feel bad for me and you’re like, get a different job. But like, this is a job I’m good at and the job I like. And I’d like to be able to make a living off of it. That extra dollar or two really makes a difference.
From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise and this is “The Daily.”
Tipping, once contained to certain corners of the economy, has exploded, creating confusion and angst and now even becoming an issue in the presidential campaign. Today, economics reporter, Ben Casselman, cracks open the mystery of this new era of tipping.
It’s Thursday, August 29.
So Sabrina.
Can I ask you a personal question?
What is your philosophy on tipping?
[LAUGHS]: Exactly.
Sabrina, I think I’m a sucker. Look, I’ve always tried to be a good tipper in restaurants. It feels like part of the deal.
I worked as a waitress for many years. That was the only way I actually made money. If there’s no tip, there’s no salary. Restaurants, it’s a rule.
Absolutely. But now tipping is everywhere. You see these tip screens in places you never would have tipped before. I mean, never mind the coffee shop, you see it at the fast food place. You see it at the oil change place. I’ve heard stories of people seeing it at the self-checkout line. Who’s even getting that tip?
And every time a tip screen pops up, I always tip.
Oh, my god, Ben, so do I.
It’s totally irrational. I hate it. But there’s some part of me, and I don’t love this about myself, that is just convinced somebody is going to be sitting there judging me or I’m terrified that they’re going to. And, oh, my god, if I click No Tip, am I a bad person?
And someone behind me in line might see that.
I can’t click that No Tip button.
I am exactly the same. Every single time I’m presented with this iPad screen thingy, the tips come up. I press max, 30 percent. My husband, an economist, thinks this is ridiculous.
He says, you’re tipping 30 percent on a bottle of water someone just handed you. Don’t do that. That is crazy. But I keep doing it because I can, so I should. I don’t know, I have guilt about it.
Your husband is objectively correct. This is crazy. But tipping is not about objective cold economic logic. It’s emotional. It’s cultural.
There are norms around it. And right now, we have no idea what those norms are. And so we’re all stuck in this panicked moment of trying to decide which button you press and whether you should be expected to tip in this circumstance.
OK, so we are both suckers. We’ve established that. What we need to do now is figure out this panicked moment. I want you to explain this to me, Ben. Why has tipping exploded?
I think there are three reasons. The first of these is just technology. Several years ago, we started to see these tablet-based checkout systems everywhere. And it’s very easy to just add a tip screen onto there, that little, do you want to add a tip, 10 percent, 15 percent, 20 percent.
Right. And as I had less cash and then no cash in my wallet, this was always the way I paid for things.
Yeah, so it became very easy technologically to add tipping. But then the real shift came in the pandemic.
If you think back to that moment, many of us were lucky enough to be able to work from home and to be relatively safe. And we felt a lot of gratitude for the people who weren’t able to do that, who were bringing us food and delivering groceries. And so there was an explosion in tipping. And an explosion in tipping, even in places where we didn’t used to tip.
If you go and pick up takeout at a restaurant, you probably always tip your delivery driver. But if you went to the restaurant and you picked it up, you didn’t tip there. But now in the pandemic moment, they add a tip screen saying, would you like to tip? And yeah, of course, I’d like to tip. These people are risking their lives out there to make my chicken tikka masala.
Right. You basically wanted to tip the UPS guy.
Yes. And so we were tipping everybody. And so that allowed tipping to spread into these new areas. It got a beachhead in places where it didn’t used to be.
And maybe if the story ended there, it would have been this moment in time and then it all would have gone back to the way it always used to be. But that didn’t happen because we had this intense worker shortage when things started to reopen.
And how does that fit into this?
Businesses start to reopen. They need workers. They’re having a hard time finding them. Workers are reluctant to come back for all sorts of reasons. And tipping became a way of attracting workers.
Businesses were paying more, but they were also looking for other ways to get workers. And saying, we’ll add a tip screen that’ll boost your pay further. And if there’s one coffee shop where there’s a tip screen and there’s another coffee shop where there isn’t, you can be pretty sure which one you’re going to go work at.
Completely. I mean, we were talking to workers yesterday, and they were very specific about which chain stores allowed tips and which ones didn’t. And they much preferred working for the ones that allowed tips. I mean, it makes sense.
And I asked them, as a proportion of your earnings, how much are tips? Tips are a lot. Does that mean you make less in the place that doesn’t have the screen that allows it? Absolutely.
We saw workers demanding this. In fact, when some Starbucks stores were unionizing, one of the things they demand is, we want to be able to take tips on credit card payments.
Interesting, yeah.
This became a source of negotiation between businesses and their workers. And the thing is, once that happens, it’s really hard to put the genie back in the bottle.
But why? I mean, this all sprung up into our lives in the matter of a couple of years. So why can’t it go back to the way it was just as quickly?
Imagine that coffee shop worker that you were talking to yesterday, who’s now making, in many cases, 20 percent, 30 percent, even 40 percent of their earnings in tips. The business can’t just say, never mind, we’re going to get rid of the tip screen. Maybe, we’ll put out a tip jar and people can leave $1 or $2 when they want to. That’s a huge pay cut for that worker.
OK, they could instead say we’re going to get rid of tipping and we’re going to raise your pay. Instead of paying you $15 an hour and $5 in tips, we’ll give you $20 an hour. But now the business is going have to raise prices as a result.
And you, Sabrina, the coffee-drinking public are going to say, no way, I’m not going there and paying $8 for my latte or whatever the price may be. And so for the business, they can’t just get rid of the tip, because they can’t just cut off the pay and they can’t raise prices enough to raise pay accordingly.
Right. Nonstarter for the business.
Can’t work for them. And the worker is certainly not going to stick around if they try to do that.
So has there been some experimentation with this? I mean, have restaurants actually tried to go tipless?
Yeah, so we’ve seen an example of exactly this. A few years back, Danny Meyer, a big New York restaurateur, and a bunch of other restaurants as well tried getting rid of tipping completely. They said, this system is unfair, it’s unequal. We’re going to raise wages for everybody, for waiters, but also for cooks.
We’re going to raise our prices, accordingly, to pay for that. And customers will understand. They’ll understand that they’re paying the same amount at the end of the day, it just is in the form of a direct cost instead of a cost plus a tip. And it didn’t work.
For a bunch of reasons. But mostly because customers looked at the price on the menu and people didn’t want to pay it. I also think, look, we all complain about tipping. But customers also kind of like the tip. They kind of like looking generous.
You get to show off to your date or to your father-in-law. And, of course, you can, at least in theory, express your dissatisfaction by withholding a tip or by tipping less. Not you and me, we apparently don’t do that. But some people do, I hear.
The restaurant’s like, suckers, OK, great. Yeah, we don’t even have to worry about them.
Customers rebelled against the idea of not tipping. And most of those restaurants eventually went back to the old model.
Interesting. So we do have this love-hate relationship with tipping.
Yes. We hate being asked, but we like the control. And I think that is part of why all these changes feel so difficult for so many people, because it doesn’t necessarily feel like you have the control anymore.
That screen in front of you with the barista watching you, with the person in line behind watching you —
Oh, my gosh, I’m sweating already.
— you don’t feel like can press the No Tip button. Or at least suckers like you and me don’t.
Exactly. The choice is gone.
The choice is gone. Or the choice, at least, is sort of psychologically more taxing.
Right. [LAUGHS]
You feel pressured to do it.
OK, so that’s the customer experience. But with this new uptick in tipping, one question I always have is, is the worker on the other side of the screen getting this tip or will the business owner pocket it?
The worker is getting the tip with some caveats. By law, the business owner or the managers, they can’t take the tips. If you click a Tip button or you leave $1 in the tip jar or you tip in any way, if that ends up in the pockets of the business owner or the general manager or what have you, that is wage theft. It happens. We certainly hear stories about it happening, but it’s certainly not legal and it’s certainly not the norm.
That doesn’t mean that the worker, the person who hands you your latte, is the person getting your dollar. It often gets pooled across all of the workers who are working that shift or even all of the workers who work over an entire week. But it’s going to the workers.
People like us can rest assured that the workers are getting the full benefit of that tip that you’re pushing.
In many ways, what you are doing as the customer is you are subsidizing the wage. If you, you coffee shop worker, want to get $25 an hour, you don’t care whether that’s $20 in pay and $5 in tip or $25 in pay or any breakdown of that.
$25 is $25.
$25 is $25. When I leave a tip of $1, on some level, that’s $1 less that coffee shop has to pay you, the barista. Tips are helping the business pay their workers. They’re shifting. The business is shifting some of the burden for paying its workers off of its revenue onto its customers.
In other words, you and I, Ben, we are kind of helping foot the bill for these wages.
Absolutely. And from the businesses’ perspective, that’s a pretty great deal, because they basically get to charge, say, $4 for the latte and then for the customers who are willing to pay more, they’re basically charging more. Those people throw on the tip.
It’s a way of the business getting the maximum dollars that it can out of the maximum number of customers that it can attract.
But for workers, this system where they’re increasingly reliant on customer tips carries some real risks.
[UPBEAT MUSIC]
We’ll be right back.
Tell me about these risks of our tipping system.
Look, tipping has always had a lot of problems associated with it. If you think in restaurants, they’re often really big pay disparities where the servers at the front of the house, who are getting tipped, often make a lot more money, especially at a nice restaurant, than the cooks and dishwashers and all of the people at the back of the house.
You hear these stories of people going to cooking school and then basically bailing on the cooking career and becoming waitresses and waiters because it’s just more money.
Yeah. And then within tipped occupations, there’s a lot of inequity here. There have been studies that have shown that a pretty young woman gets tipped better than other people, that white people often get tipped better. There are tons of problems around sexual harassment, because if your earnings are dependent on the table that you’re serving liking you, then maybe you put up with things that workers shouldn’t have to put up with.
Those are the problems that have always existed in this system. But then as tipping spreads, the risk is, first, just more workers have to deal with this, but also that more workers become more dependent on tips for their earnings.
In the short term, this has all worked out pretty well for workers. This has been a period where they’ve been in hot demand, and so their wages have been rising. And at the same time, they’ve gotten all these tips on top of that. And that’s been really great.
But it’s not clear that that’s true over the longer term. Over the long run, you could imagine that all of these businesses get to just raise wages more slowly, that tips sort of eat away at wages over time. And then if we ever see customers pull back a little bit, tip less, then all of a sudden, all of these workers could really suffer.
Basically, you’re describing a system in which the earnings are just more vulnerable, more dependent on the kindness of strangers.
Yeah. And more at risk if those strangers become a little less kind.
Yes. And this issue has become so much a part of the national conversation that it’s actually entered the presidential race. Both former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have announced policy plans to help service workers. And essentially, they’re calling for no tax on tips.
Yeah, that’s right. So President Trump announced this several weeks ago as his big new “no taxes on tips” proposal. Kamala Harris followed up and basically endorsed that proposal, again, a little while later. We don’t have a lot of details on how this would work. But essentially, it would mean that if you earn tips, those tips are exempt at least from federal income tax.
What would that mean?
Let me tell you, economists hate this idea. Left-wing economists and right-wing economists, this is one point they can kind of all agree on.
And why do they hate it?
Because they say it’s unfair. It singles out this one group of workers for special treatment. The person who works at McDonald’s who doesn’t get tipped, they don’t benefit from this. The retail worker doesn’t benefit from this. It’s just this one group of workers who get this special treatment where they don’t have to pay taxes.
Right. Right.
But there’s also maybe an even more fundamental issue, which is that if you think you hate tipping now, if these proposals go through, you’re going to see so much more tipping.
Uh-oh, I’m holding on to my hat.
Because it’s basically a subsidy for tips.
As a worker, we said before, you don’t care whether you make, $25 an hour or $20 plus $5 an hour in tips, except that if some of that money isn’t taxed, you want more of that. You want more tips.
Basically, you want your entire salary to be a tip.
Ideally, right? And so that works great for the business perspective. Great, I don’t need to pay my workers.
[LAUGHS]: Wee!
It’s all tips now. Workers happy about that. What that means is you’re going to see more businesses looking for ways to have their workers count as tipped. Maybe you start to see tips in places that we’re not seeing them at all. Maybe you really do start to pay tips at a retail outlet, at a gas station.
Grocery store?
At a grocery store, why not? And the issue there, beyond just it being annoying for you and me, is that it further ingrains this system. All those problems that we were talking about in tipping now involves even more workers across the economy. And they’re even more vulnerable to that possibility that you and I start tipping a little bit less.
Ben, how would you describe where we are in this tipping moment? Is this just the new normal?
I think we’re still in a period of transition here. The fact that we’re having this conversation on some level tells you that we’re not totally in a new normal yet. You don’t leave a restaurant and say to yourself, man, I can’t believe I was asked to tip. But we’re still all the time having this conversation about, you wouldn’t believe I got asked to tip at the self-checkout.
Right. The bakery, for god’s sake.
It’s still a transition. It’s still happening. Over time, norms will develop. We’ll figure out the places where we tip and the places where we don’t, and how much and all of that.
But the dust hasn’t quite settled yet.
It hasn’t settled. But I think what we do know is that we’re not going back. We’re now going back to a world where we only tip in those set of circumstances where we used to. And remember, this whole transition has happened during a period of relative economic strength, when people have had money to go out and spend and to tip. The question is, what happens when that’s no longer true?
Right. When there’s a recession, people are going to be nervous about their pocketbooks and probably won’t be as generous.
Whenever we get to the next recession, it will be the first one in this new era of tipping.
And there’s a whole new group of workers who are going to lose out when that happens, who are dependent on tips and will suffer when customers start pulling those tips back.
Ben, thank you.
Sabrina, thank you so much. And the screen is just going to ask you a couple of questions at the end here.
[LAUGHS]: Ben, 30 percent.
Here’s what else you should know today. On Wednesday, at least 10 Palestinians were killed when hundreds of Israeli troops launched major raids overnight in the occupied West Bank, targeting Palestinian militants, after what Israel said was months of rising attacks. The operation, the largest since 2023, followed months of escalating Israeli raids in the occupied territory, where nearly three million Palestinians live under Israeli military rule.
And the Supreme Court maintained a temporary pause on a new plan by President Biden to wipe out tens of millions of dollars of student debt. The plan was part of the president’s approach to forgiving debt after the Supreme Court rejected a more ambitious proposal last year that would have canceled more than $400 billion in loans. The scaled-down plan was directed at certain types of borrowers, including people on disability and public service workers. The court’s decision leaves millions of borrowers enrolled in the new plan in limbo.
Today’s episode was produced by Mooj Zadie, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Eric Krupke, and Clare Toeniskoetter. It was edited by Lisa Chow and Brendan Klinkenberg, contains original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, and Rowan Niemisto, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.
[THEME MUSIC]
That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you tomorrow.
Hosted by Sabrina Tavernise
Featuring Ben Casselman
Produced by Mooj Zadie Asthaa Chaturvedi Eric Krupke and Clare Toeniskoetter
Edited by Lisa Chow and Brendan Klinkenberg
Original music by Dan Powell Marion Lozano and Rowan Niemisto
Engineered by Chris Wood
Tipping, once contained to certain corners of the economy, has exploded, creating confusion and angst. Now, it is even becoming an issue in the U.S. presidential campaign.
Ben Casselman, who covers the U.S. economy for The New York Times, cracks open the mystery of this new era of tipping.
Ben Casselman , a reporter covering the U.S. economy for The New York Times.
How to deal with the many requests for tips .
Former President Donald J. Trump called Vice President Kamala Harris a “copycat” over her “no tax on tips” plan.
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A comprehensive, step-by-step guide - complete with real examples - on writing business plans with just the right amount of panache to catch an investor's attention and serve as a guiding star for your business.
So you've got a killer startup idea. Now you need to write a business plan that is equally killer.
You fire up your computer, open a Google doc, and stare at the blank page for several minutes before it suddenly dawns on you that, Hm…maybe I have no idea how to write a business plan from scratch after all.
Don't let it get you down. After all, why would you know anything about business planning? For that very reason we have 4 amazing business plan samples to share with you as inspiration.
For most founders, writing a business plan feels like the startup equivalent of homework. It's the thing you know you have to do, but nobody actually wants to do.
Here's the good news: writing a business plan doesn't have to be this daunting, cumbersome chore.
Once you understand the fundamental questions that your business plan should answer for your readers and how to position everything in a way that compels your them to take action, writing a business plan becomes way more approachable.
Before you set fingers to the keyboard to turn your business idea into written documentation of your organizational structure and business goals, we're going to walk you through the most important things to keep in mind (like company description, financials, and market analysis, etc.) and to help you tackle the writing process confidently — with plenty of real life business plan examples along the way to get you writing a business plan to be proud of!
There's this old-school idea that business plans need to be ultra-dense, complex documents the size of a doorstop because that's how you convey how serious you are about your company.
Not so much.
Complexity and length for complexity and length's sake is almost never a good idea, especially when it comes to writing a business plan. There are a couple of reasons for this.
If your chief goal is using your business plan to secure funding, then it means you intend on getting it in front of an investor. And if there's one thing investors are, it's busy. So keep this in mind throughout writing a business plan.
Investors wade through hundreds of business plans a year. There's no version of you presenting an 80-page business plan to an investor and they enthusiastically dive in and take hours out of their day to pour over the thing front to back.
Instead, they're looking for you to get your point across as quickly and clearly as possible so they can skim your business plan and get to the most salient parts to determine whether or not they think your opportunity is worth pursuing (or at the very least initiating further discussions).
You should be able to refine all of the key value points that investors look for to 15-20 pages (not including appendices where you will detail your financials). If you find yourself writing beyond that, then it's probably a case of either over explaining, repeating information, or including irrelevant details in your business plan (you don't need to devote 10 pages to how you're going to set up your website, for example).
Bottom line: always be on the lookout for opportunities to “trim the fat" while writing a business plan (and pay special attention to the executive summary section below), and you'll be more likely to secure funding.
If you fill your business plan with buzzwords, industry-specific jargon or acronyms, and long complicated sentences, it might make sense to a handful of people familiar with your niche and those with superhuman attention spans (not many), but it alienates the vast majority of readers who aren't experts in your particular industry. And if no one can understand so much as your company overview, they won't make it through the rest of your business plan.
Your best bet here is to use simple, straightforward language that's easily understood by anyone — from the most savvy of investor to your Great Aunt Bertha who still uses a landline.
You might be a prodigy in quantum mechanics, but if you show up to your interview rocking cargo shorts and lime green Crocs, you can probably guess what the hiring manager is going to notice first.
In the same way, how you present your business plan to your readers equally as important as what you present to them. So don't go over the top with an extensive executive summary, or get lazy with endless bullet points on your marketing strategy.
If your business plan is laden with inconsistent margins, multiple font types and sizes, missing headings and page numbers, and lacks a table of contents, it's going to create a far less digestible reading experience (and totally take away from your amazing idea and hours of work writing a business plan!)
While there's no one right way to format your business plan, the idea here is to ensure that it presents professionally. Here's some easy formatting tips to help you do just that.
If your margins are too narrow, it makes the page look super cluttered and more difficult to read.
A good rule of thumb is sticking to standard one-inch margins all around.
Your business plan is made up of several key sections, like chapters in a book.
Whenever you begin a section (“Traction” for example) you'll want to signify it using a header so that your reader immediately knows what to expect from the content that follows.
This also helps break up your content and keep everything nice and organized in your business plan.
Subheadings are mini versions of headings meant to break up content within each individual section and capture the attention of your readers to keep them moving down the page.
In fact, we're using sub-headers right now in this section for that very purpose!
Limit your business plan to two typefaces (one for headings and one for body copy and subheadings, for example) that you can find in a standard text editor like Microsoft Word or Google Docs.
Only pick fonts that are easy to read and contain both capital and lowercase letters.
Avoid script-style or jarring fonts that distract from the actual content. Modern, sans-serif fonts like Helvetica, Arial, and Proxima Nova are a good way to go.
Keep your body copy between 11 and 12-point font size to ensure readability (some fonts are more squint-inducing than others).
You can offset your headings from your body copy by simply upping the font size and by bolding your subheadings.
Sometimes it's better to show instead of just tell.
Assume that your readers are going to skim your plan rather than read it word-for-word and treat it as an opportunity to grab their attention with color graphics, tables, and charts (especially with financial forecasts), as well as product images, if applicable.
This will also help your reader better visualize what your business model is all about.
Need some help with this?
Our business planning wizard comes pre-loaded with a modular business plan template that you can complete in any order and makes it ridiculously easy to generate everything you need from your value proposition, mission statement, financial projections, competitive advantage, sales strategy, market research, target market, financial statements, marketing strategy, in a way that clearly communicates your business idea.
Your business isn't static, so why should your business plan be?
Your business strategy is always evolving, and so are good business plans. This means that the early versions of your business plans probably won't (and shouldn't be) your last. The details of even even the best business plans are only as good as their last update.
As your business progresses and your ideas about it shift, it's important revisit your business plan from time to time to make sure it reflects those changes, keeping everything as accurate and up-to-date as possible. What good is market analysis if the market has shifted and you have an entirely different set of potential customers? And what good would the business model be if you've recently pivoted? A revised business plan is a solid business plan. It doesn't ensure business success, but it certainly helps to support it.
This rule especially holds true when you go about your market research and learn something that goes against your initial assumptions, impacting everything from your sales strategy to your financial projections.
At the same time, before you begin shopping your business plan around to potential investors or bankers, it's imperative to get a second pair of eyes on it after you've put the final period on your first draft.
After you run your spell check, have someone with strong “English teacher skills” run a fine-tooth comb over your plan for any spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors you may have glossed over. An updated, detailed business plan (without errors!) should be constantly in your business goals.
More than that, your trusty business plan critic can also give you valuable feedback on how it reads from a stylistic perspective. While different investors prefer different styles, the key here is to remain consistent with your audience and business.
We devoted an entire article carefully breaking down the key components of a business plan which takes a comprehensive look of what each section entails and why.
If you haven't already, you should check that out, as it will act as the perfect companion piece to what we're about to dive into in a moment.
For our purposes here, we're going to look at a few real world business plan examples (as well as one of our own self-penned “dummy” plans) to give you an inside look at how to position key information on a section-by-section basis.
Quick overview.
After your Title Page — which includes your company name, slogan (if applicable), and contact information — and your Table of Contents, the Executive Summary will be the first section of actual content about your business.
The primary goal of your Executive Summary is to provide your readers with a high level overview of your business plan as a whole by summarizing the most important aspects in a few short sentences. Think of your Executive Summary as a kind of “teaser” for your business concept and the information to follow — information which you will explain in greater detail throughout your plan. This isn't the place for your a deep dive on your competitive advantages, or cash flow statement. It is an appropriate place to share your mission statement and value proposition.
Executive Summary Example
Here's an example of an Executive Summary taken from a sample business plan written by the Startups.com team for a fictional company called Culina. Here, we'll see how the Executive Summary offers brief overviews of the Product , Market Opportunity , Traction , and Next Steps .
Culina Tech specializes in home automation and IoT technology products designed to create the ultimate smart kitchen for modern homeowners.
Our flagship product, the Culina Smart Plug, enables users to make any kitchen appliance or cooking device intelligent. Compatible with all existing brands that plug into standard two or three-prong wall outlets, Culina creates an entire network of Wi-Fi-connected kitchen devices that can be controlled and monitored remotely right from your smartphone.
The majority of US households now spend roughly 35% of their energy consumption on appliances, electronics, and lighting. With the ability to set energy usage caps on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, Culina helps homeowners stay within their monthly utility budget through more efficient use of the dishwasher, refrigerator, freezer, stove, and other common kitchen appliances.
Additionally, 50.8% of house fires are caused in the kitchen — more than any other room in the home — translating to over $5 billion in property damage costs per year. Culina provides the preventative intelligence necessary to dramatically reduce kitchen-related disasters and their associated costs and risk of personal harm.
Our team has already completed the product development and design phase, and we are now ready to begin mass manufacturing. We've also gained a major foothold among consumers and investors alike, with 10,000 pre-ordered units sold and $5 million in investment capital secured to date.
We're currently seeking a $15M Series B capital investment that will give us the financial flexibility to ramp up hardware manufacturing, improve software UX and UI, expand our sales and marketing efforts, and fulfill pre-orders in time for the 2018 holiday season.
Your Company Synopsis section answers two critically important questions for your readers: What painful PROBLEM are you solving for your customers? And what is your elegant SOLUTION to that problem? The combination of these two components form your value proposition.
Company Synopsis Example
Let's look at a real-life company description example from HolliBlu * — a mobile app that connects healthcare facilities with local skilled nurses — to see how they successfully address both of these key aspects. *Note: Full disclosure; Our team worked directly with this company on their business plan via Fundable.
Notice how we get a crystal clear understanding of why the company exists to begin with when they set up the problem — that traditional nurse recruitment methods are costly, inconvenient, and time-consuming, creating significant barriers to providing quality nursing to patients in need.
Once we understand the painful problem that HolliBlu's customers face, we're then directly told how their solution links back directly to that problem — by creating an entire community of qualified nurses and directly connecting them with local employers more cost-effectively and more efficiently than traditional methods.
Your Market Overview provides color around the industry that you will be competing in as it relates to your product/service.
This will include statistics about industry size, [growth](https://www.startups.com/library/expert-advice/the-case-for-growing-slowly) rate, trends, and overall outlook. If this part of your business plan can be summed up in one word, it's research .
The idea is to gather as much raw data as you can to make the case for your readers that:
This is a market big enough to get excited about.
You can capture a big enough share of this market to get excited about.
Here's an example from HolliBlu's business plan:
HolliBlu's Market Overview hits all of the marks — clearly laying out the industry size ($74.8 billion), the Total Addressable Market or TAM (3 million registered nurses), industry growth rate (581,500 new RN jobs through 2018; $355 billion by 2020), and industry trends (movement toward federally-mandated compliance with nurse/patient ratios, companies offering sign-on bonuses to secure qualified nurses, increasing popularity of home-based healthcare).
Where your Company Synopsis is meant to shed light on why the company exists by demonstrating the problem you're setting out to solve and then bolstering that with an impactful solution, your Product or How it Works section allows you to get into the nitty gritty of how it actually delivers that value, and any competitive advantage it provides you.
In the below example from our team's Culina sample plan, we've divided the section up using subheadings to call attention to product's key features and how it actually works from a user perspective.
This approach is particularly effective if your product or service has several unique features that you want to highlight.
Quite simply, your Revenue Model gives your readers a framework for how you plan on making money. It identifies which revenue channels you're leveraging, how you're pricing your product or service, and why.
Let's take a look at another real world business plan example with brewpub startup Magic Waters Brewpub .*
It can be easy to get hung up on the financial aspect here, especially if you haven't fully developed your product yet. And that's okay. *Note: Full disclosure; Our team worked directly with this company on their business plan via Fundable.
The thing to remember is that investors will want to see that you've at least made some basic assumptions about your monetization strategy.
Your Operating Model quite simply refers to how your company actually runs itself. It's the detailed breakdown of the processes, technologies, and physical requirements (assets) that allow you to deliver the value to your customers that your product or service promises.
Let's say you were opening up a local coffee shop, for example. Your Operating Model might detail the following:
Information about your facility (location, indoor and outdoor space features, lease amount, utility costs, etc.)
The equipment you need to purchase (coffee and espresso machines, appliances, shelving and storage, etc.) and their respective costs.
The inventory you plan to order regularly (product, supplies, etc.), how you plan to order it (an online supplier) and how often it gets delivered (Mon-Fri).
Your staffing requirements (including how many part or full time employees you'll need, at what wages, their job descriptions, etc.)
In addition, you can also use your Operating Model to lay out the ways you intend to manage the costs and efficiencies associated with your business, including:
The Critical Costs that make or break your business. In the case of our coffee shop example, you might say something like,
“We're estimating the marketing cost to acquire a customer is going to be $25. Our average sale is $45. So long as we can keep our customer acquisition costs below $25 we will have enough margin to grow with.”
Cost Maturation & Milestones that show how your Critical Costs might fluctuate over time.
“If we sell 50 coffees a day, our average unit cost will be $8 on a sale of $10. At that point we're barely breaking even. However as we scale up to 200 coffees a day, our unit costs drop significantly to $4, creating a 100% increase in net income.”
Investment Costs that highlight strategic uses of capital that will have a big Return on Investment (ROI) later.
“We're investing $100,000 into a revolutionary new coffee brewing system that will allow us to brew twice the amount our current output with the same amount of space and staff.”
Operating Efficiencies explaining your capability of delivering your product or service in the most cost effective manner possible while maintaining the highest standards of quality.
“By using energy efficient Ecoboilers, we're able to keep our water hot while minimizing the amount of energy required. Our machines also feature an energy saving mode. Both of these allow us to dramatically cut energy costs.”
Like the Market Overview section, you want to show your readers that you've done your homework and have a crazy high level of awareness about your current competitors or any potential competitors that may crop up down the line for your given business model.
When writing your Competitive Analysis, your overview should cover who your closest competitors are, the chief strengths they bring to the table, and their biggest weaknesses .
You'll want to identify at least 3 competitors — either direct, indirect, or a combination of the two. It's an extremely important aspect of the business planning process.
Here's an example of how HolliBlu lays out their Competitive Analysis section for just one of their competitors, implementing each of the criteria noted above:
Your Customer Definition section allows you to note which customer segment(s) you're going after, what characteristics and habits each customer segment embodies, how each segment uniquely benefits from your product or service, and how all of this ties together to create the ideal portrait of an actual paying customer, and how you'll cultivate and manage customer relationships.
HolliBlu's Customer Definition section is effective for several reasons. Let's deconstruct their first target market segment, hospitals.
What's particularly successful here is that we are explained why hospitals are optimal buyers.
They accomplish this by harkening back to the central problem at the core of the opportunity (when hospitals can't supply enough staff to meet patient demands, they have to resort on costly staffing agencies).
On top of that, we are also told how big of an opportunity going after this customer segment represents (5,534 hospitals in the US).
This template is followed for each of the company's 3 core customer segments. This provides consistency, but more than that, it emphasizes how diligent research reinforces their assumptions about who their customers are and why they'd open their wallets. Keep all of this in mind when you are write your own business plan.
Now that you've defined who your customers are for your readers, your Customer Acquisition section will tell them what marketing and sales strategy and tactics you plan to leverage to actually reach the target market (or target markets) and ultimately convert them into paying customers.
Similar to the exercise you will go through with your Revenue Model, in addition to identifying which channels you're pursuing, you'll also want to detail all of relevant costs associated with your customer acquisition channels.
Let's say you spent $100 on your marketing plan to acquire 100 customers during 2018. To get your CAC, you simply divide the number of customers acquired by your spend, giving you a $1.00 CAC.
This one's huge. Traction tells investors one important thing: that you're business has momentum. It's evidence that you're making forward progress and hitting milestones. That things are happening. It's one of the most critical components of a successful business plan.
Why is this so important? Financial projections are great and all, but if you can prove to investors that your company's got legs before they've even put a dime into it, then it will get them thinking about all the great things you'll be able to accomplish when they do bankroll you.
In our Culina Traction section, we've called attention to several forms of traction, touching on some of the biggest ones that you'll want to consider when writing your own plan.
Have I built or launched my product or service yet?
Have I reached any customers yet?
Have I generated any revenue yet?
Have I forged any strategic industry relationships that will be instrumental in driving growth?
The key takeaway here: the more traction you can show, the more credibility you build with investors. After all, you can't leave it all on market analysis alone.
Here's what your Management Team section isn't: it's not an exhaustive rundown of each and every position your team members have held over the course of their lives.
Instead, you should tell investors which aspects of your team's experience and expertise directly translates to the success of this company and this industry.
In other words, what applicable, relevant background do they bring to the table?
Management Team Example
Let's be real. The vast majority of startup teams probably aren't stacked with Harvard and Stanford grads. But the thing to home in on is how the prior experience listed speaks directly to how it qualifies that team member's current position.
The word of the day here is relevancy. If it's not relevant, you probably don't need to include it in your typical business plan.
Funding overview.
The ask! This is where you come out and, you guessed it, ask your investors point blank how much money you need to move your business forward, what specific milestones their investment will allow you to reach, how you'll allocate the capital you secure, and what the investor will get in exchange for their investment.
You can also include information about your exit strategy (IPO, acquisition, merger?).
While we've preached against redundancy in your business plan, an exception to the rule is using the Funding section to offer up a very brief recap that essentially says, “here are the biggest reasons you should invest in my company and why it will ultimately benefit you.”
Spreadsheets and numbers and charts, oh my! Yes, it's everybody's “favorite” business plan section: Financials.
Your Financials section will come last and contain all of the forecasted numbers that say to investors that this is a sound investment. This will include things like your sales forecast, expense budget, and break-even analysis. A lot of this will be assumptions, or estimates.
The key here is keeping those estimates as realistic as humanly possible by breaking your figures into components and looking at each one individually.
Financials Example
The balance sheet above illustrates the business' estimated net worth over a three-year period by summarizing its assets (tangible objects owned by the company), liabilities (debt owed to a creditor of the company), and shareholders' equity (source of financing used to fund the assets).
In plain words, the balance sheet is basically a snapshot of your business' financial status by laying out what you own and owe, helping investors determine the level of risk involved and giving them a good understanding of the financial health of the business.
If you're looking to up your game from those outdated Excel-style spreadsheets, our business planning software will help you create clean, sleek, modern financial reports the modern way. Plus, it's as easy to use as it is attractive to look at. You might even find yourself enjoying financial projections, building a cash flow statement, and business planning overall.
You've committed to writing your business plan and now you've got some tricks of the trade to help you out along the way. Whether you're applying for a business loan or seeking investors, your well-crafted business plan will act as your Holy Grail in helping take your business goals to the next plateau.
This is a ton of work. It's not a few hours and a free business plan template. It's not just a business plan software. We've been there before. Writing your [business plan](https://www.startups.com/library/expert-advice/top-4-business-plan-examples) is just one small step in startup journey. There's a whole long road ahead of you filled with a marketing plan, investor outreach, chasing venture capitalists, actually getting funded, and growing your business into a successful company.
And guess what? We've got helpful information on all of it — and all at your disposal! We hope this guides you confidently on how to write a business plan worth bragging about.
Ronald Calderon
Great info for feedback my current business plan!
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Describe Your Services or Products. The business plan should have a section that explains the services or products that you're offering. This is the part where you can also describe how they fit ...
A good business plan guides you through each stage of starting and managing your business. You'll use your business plan as a roadmap for how to structure, run, and grow your new business. It's a way to think through the key elements of your business. Business plans can help you get funding or bring on new business partners.
1. Create Your Executive Summary. The executive summary is a snapshot of your business or a high-level overview of your business purposes and plans. Although the executive summary is the first section in your business plan, most people write it last. The length of the executive summary is not more than two pages.
Most business plans also include financial forecasts for the future. These set sales goals, budget for expenses, and predict profits and cash flow. A good business plan is much more than just a document that you write once and forget about. It's also a guide that helps you outline and achieve your goals. After completing your plan, you can ...
Learn about the best business plan software. 1. Write an executive summary. This is your elevator pitch. It should include a mission statement, a brief description of the products or services your ...
While your plan will be unique to your business and goals, keep these tips in mind as you write. 1. Know your audience. When you know who will be reading your plan—even if you're just writing it for yourself to clarify your ideas—you can tailor the language and level of detail to them.
Here's the good news: writing a business plan doesn't have to be this daunting, cumbersome chore. ... The Critical Costs that make or break your business. In the case of our coffee shop example, you might say something like, "We're estimating the marketing cost to acquire a customer is going to be $25. Our average sale is $45.
The steps below will guide you through the process of creating a business plan and what key components you need to include. 1. Create an executive summary. Start with a brief overview of your entire plan. The executive summary should cover your business plan's main points and key takeaways.
How to Write a Business Plan Step 1. Create a Cover Page. The first thing investors will see is the cover page for your business plan. Make sure it looks professional. A great cover page shows that you think about first impressions. A good business plan should have the following elements on a cover page:
Step 2: Do your market research homework. The next step in writing a business plan is to conduct market research. This involves gathering information about your target market (or customer persona), your competition, and the industry as a whole. You can use a variety of research methods such as surveys, focus groups, and online research to ...
You can include these advertising costs in your simple business plan template to help build a marketing plan and budget. Getty. 5. Structure, Suppliers and Operations ... raw goods and supplier ...
Step #4: Research Your Competition. Step #5: Outline Your Products or Services. Step #6: Summarize Your Financial Plan. Step #7: Determine Your Marketing Strategy. Step #8: Showcase Your Organizational Chart. 14 Business Plan Templates to Help You Get Started.
Moreover, companies with a business plan grow 30% faster than those that don't plan. According to a Harvard Business Review article, entrepreneurs who write formal plans are 16% more likely to ...
The key to a successful business is preparation. Before your business opens its doors, you'll have bills to pay. Understanding your expenses will help you launch successfully. Calculating startup costs helps you: Estimate profits. Conduct a break-even analysis. Secure loans. Attract investors. Save money with tax deductions.
7 business plan examples: section by section. The business plan examples in this article follow this template: Executive summary. An introductory overview of your business. Company description. A more in-depth and detailed description of your business and why it exists. Market analysis.
Early on, your business is more of an idea than a reality, so your business plan can help prospective employees understand your goals--and, more important, their place in helping you achieve those ...
Add in the company logo and a table of contents that follows the executive summary. 2. Executive summary. Think of the executive summary as the SparkNotes version of your business plan. It should ...
Download or view 14 business plans examples/samples, vetted by our MBA business plan writers. Download in PDF format or read like a book. These real business plan samples would help in writing your own business plan. Download Pack of 14 Business Plan Examples FREE.
However, you must understand that a minimum of 20 hours is usually required to create a business plan. So, if your business plan writer charges $100 per hour and works for 20 hours, you'll pay $2,000 for the document. If they charge $300 per hour, you'll pay $6,000. However, these are just for simple business plans.
And don't leave tactics without developing concrete specifics, milestones, budgets, tasks, responsibility assignments, tracking, and how you'll follow up. 7. It incorporates a monthly review schedule. Good business plans include timing and schedules for regular updates.
Professional business plan writers and consultants generally charge between $2,000 and $25,000. However, the cost largely depends on the required quality of your plan, the complexity of your business plan, and the length of the document. Professional business plans for very small companies may only require a few thousand dollars to be written ...
Cost of Goods Sold = Beginning Inventory + Purchased Inventory - Ending Inventory. Cost of Goods Sold = $1,000,000 + $700,000 - $500,000. Cost of Goods Sold = $1,200,000. This means the manufacturer's total number of backpacks sold during this month cost $1,200,000 to produce.
The calculation of the cost of good sold is as follows: Cost of good sold = Beginning inventory + Manufacturing costs - Ending inventory. Cost of good sold = 40,000 + 156,000 - 32,000 = 164,000. In like fashion in a retail or wholesale based business, the value of the COGS can be calculated using a similar formula as follows:
Hosting plan prices vary widely among providers. You can expect to pay anywhere between $6 per month and $16 per month for shared hosting, though there are often promotions for cheaper plans for ...
Business Press Release. T-Mobile US, Inc. to Host Capital Markets Day on Sept. 18, 2024. August 05, 2024 | 2 min read. Devices Press Release. T-Mobile Offers New Google Pixels with Exclusive Deals, Free Devices and Faster Speeds. August 13, 2024 | 7 min read. Business Press Release.
Tax credits - People claiming working tax credit can get up to 70% of what they pay for childcare if their costs are no more than £175 per week for one child or £300 per work for multiple ...
Vice President Kamala Harris' economic plan is focused on lowering costs and boosting economic opportunity for lower- and middle-class Americans through measures including tax credits and ...
Discover the top life insurance companies of 2024. Get in-depth reviews, ratings, and expert insights to choose the best life insurance policy.
The plan was part of the president's approach to forgiving debt after the Supreme Court rejected a more ambitious proposal last year that would have canceled more than $400 billion in loans.
Here's the good news: writing a business plan doesn't have to be this daunting, cumbersome chore. ... The Critical Costs that make or break your business. In the case of our coffee shop example, you might say something like, "We're estimating the marketing cost to acquire a customer is going to be $25. Our average sale is $45.