What a cross-border Douyin channel really costs.
Model what it costs to sell on Douyin through a Douyin Partner (DP), on the cross-border bonded model (抖音全球购), across your first two years. It works for any product category.
Start calculatingFour moving parts, two years of cost.
You fund
Platform and bonded deposits, trademark, launch content. The one-time money that gets the store live.
The DP runs
A Douyin Partner (DP) owns the team and runs the storefront and livestreams day to day.
Creators sell
KOLs move the volume on commission. Paid media on 千川 warms the algorithm and fills the room.
You measure
The calculator totals every line, splits setup from running cost, and flags what comes back on exit.
- Year 1 and Year 2, side by side
- Full cost stack in RMB and USD
- Cost per order vs your AOV
- Refundable deposits vs real burn
- Breakeven GMV from your margin
Set your assumptions
Year 1 and Year 2 cost breakdown
Where the money goes
Your first-year cost, ranked biggest to smallest.
See the full line-by-line breakdown
| Cost item | Year 1 | Year 2 |
|---|
Reading the numbers
- Setup is paid once but it is not all a Year 1 cost. The launch content and the trademark are written off over the amortization period you set, so each year carries its share and the operating result is not crushed by a bill it will benefit from for years. The deposits and the tax prepayment are different: you get them back on exit, so they are working capital and never reach the profit and loss at all. That is why the cash column and the profit column disagree, and both are right.
- The model runs cross-border only, through the bonded warehouse (抖音全球购). The warehouse deposit and the tax prepayment come back to you on exit, so the calculator counts them as money you get back, not money you spend.
- The DP retainer plus its commission on GMV is one of the largest lines, alongside paid media. Paid media on 千川 is funded by you directly into the ad account, not billed through the DP. That split is deliberate: DPs that try to front the ad spend tend to fall over.
- The DP runs Douyin only. Their team cost sits inside the retainer and the commission, so there is no separate headcount line. KOL commission is billed apart, on sales the creators actually drive.
- A pure KOL mix is a launch tactic, not an end state. Creator livestreams account for roughly 30% of Douyin GMV platform-wide, top hosts take 30 to 50% commission, and their volumes are hard to repeat month over month. Brands that scale on Douyin pair creators with 千川 paid media, which re-runs the creator content that already converts, and let organic and store traffic climb from there.
- ROAS is one number here: what you expect the account to average across the first year. A fresh Douyin account runs low in the early months and climbs once the algorithm learns who to show you to, so set a blended figure rather than a best case.
- The platform deposit and the tech service fee move with your product category. Pick a category in the fine-tune panel and both fill in from the published cross-border bands.
- Year 1 usually runs at a loss at RMB 2M GMV. The table sets Year 1 against Year 2, when the one-time setup drops off, the channel mix switches to your Year 2 sliders and GMV steps up by your growth assumption. Breakeven GMV shows the scale you need for gross profit to cover the bill, and it often lands several times above a first-year target.
Want us to pressure-test these assumptions against your own brief?
Talk to our China teamA quick note. These figures are a planning estimate, not a quote. The model runs on public benchmarks and the numbers you type in, so the output is directional only. We don't guarantee the totals, the assumptions, or the math behind them. It's here for demo and info, nothing more. Before you commit real money, check every line against actual quotes from your DP, your warehouse, and the platform.