What the numbers say
An order at $2,082.00 weighs about 1 lb packed, so its label costs $9.29 at USPS's Zone 5 commercial price. Charging the 1 lb label ($9.29) and shipping free differ by $7.23 per order.
Free shipping on every order keeps $722.15 per order against $729.38 when shipping is charged. To earn the same per visitor it has to bring 1.0% more buyers.
A threshold only adds something above the average order. An order that tops up from $2,082.00 to $2,102.45 with more of the same goods and ships free keeps $729.38, against the $729.38 the average order keeps with shipping charged. That is the break-even: a lower threshold loses money on every order that tops up to it, and at $2,105.00 each top-up earns $0.88 more.
Those two orders are costed in the average order's parcel, at the same gross margin; a top-up heavy enough to need a larger label raises the break-even. And every order already above the threshold stops paying its $9.29 of shipping and buys nothing extra. The free-shipping threshold calculator counts both sides with your own order values.
The cost structure, and where it comes from
| Price | $2,082.00, the average order. Brilliant Earth, annual report (Form 10-K) for the year ended 2025-12-31, read 13 October 2026 |
|---|---|
| Unit cost | $884.85. From the income statement: revenue $437.5 million, gross profit $251.5 million, a gross margin of 57.5%. Brilliant Earth, annual report (Form 10-K) for the year ended 2025-12-31, read 13 October 2026 |
| Pick and pack | $3.20 per order and $0.48 for each extra item. Fulfill.com, 3PL pricing benchmarks (The Fulfillment Advisor 2025 survey of 600+ warehouses), read 23 September 2026 |
| Shipping label | USPS Ground Advantage, commercial, Zone 5, by weight rounded up to the pound: 1 lb $9.29 · 2 lb $10.50 · 3 lb $12.12 · 4 lb $13.89 · 5 lb $14.53. Packed weight is an assumption: 1 lb per order. USPS Notice 123, USPS Ground Advantage Commercial, Zone 5 (effective 4 October 2026), read 13 October 2026 |
| Card fees | 2.9% + $0.30 per order: Shopify Payments' online rate for a standard card on the Basic plan in the United States. Higher plans pay a lower rate, and premium cards a higher one. Shopify's pricing page for the United States, online standard card rates, read 12 October 2026 Rates by plan and country |
| Refund reserve | 19.3%, NRF's estimate of online sales returned in 2025, across all categories. NRF and Happy Returns, 2025 Retail Returns Landscape (15 October 2025), read 23 September 2026 |
| Gift | A travel case: unit cost $17.00, retail $40.00. A $40 jewelry travel case, costed at Brilliant Earth's reported gross margin. |
The offer, as an agent writes it
An agent writes this offer as one document for Offer Suite's API, validated against the offer schema. Below is one option of it: what the buyer gets and the price it promises. Offer Suite checks with a real cart that checkout charges exactly the prices above.
Show one option 1 option · excerpt
{
"key": "order",
"display": {
"title": "Free shipping"
},
"lines": [
{
"role": "main",
"quantity": 1,
"purchase": {
"type": "one_time"
}
}
],
"pricing": {
"promise": {
"firstChargeCents": 208200,
"renewalChargeCents": null
}
}
}How Offer Suite validates, versions and publishes a document like this one: offer documents.
Questions
Is free shipping profitable for jewelry brands?
Shipped free, an average order of $2,082.00 keeps $722.15 on these costs, $7.23 less than with the $9.29 label charged. It pays for itself if it brings 1.0% more buyers.
What free-shipping threshold should jewelry brands set?
Above $2,102.45 on these costs: an order that tops up to less keeps less than it kept paying for shipping. At $2,105.00, each top-up earns $0.88 more.