Cold Start Calculator
TikTok Shop, Amazon, Walmart, and your own store
Size your Cold Start campaign: how many reimbursed purchases to hit your social proof goal, TikTok Shop's $2,000 GMV outreach tier, or the purchase badges shoppers look for on Amazon and Walmart, and what it truly costs.
Your Product & Goals
Plan around reviews or the $2,000 GMV outreach tier on TikTok Shop.
Seed enough units to hit your review goal, then see whether that also clears the $2,000 GMV tier.
What the shopper pays at checkout - reimbursed with the product price.
Optional cash bonus paid to the shopper on top of the reimbursement. Speeds up sampling for low-interest products. Leave at $0 to skip.
What one unit costs you to make or buy (COGS).
Share of seeded units that leave a review. Plan conservatively (~30%) or use your shop's actual rate - most campaigns land between 20-60%.
TikTok's referral fee on each sale (typically ~6%).
$15 Sparq fee per sampled unit (Free plan pricing)
Your Sampling Plan
Products to Sample
167
50 reviews ÷ 30% completion - and this volume already clears the $2,000 GMV tier.
Every sampled unit is a real TikTok Shop purchase at full price, so all of it counts toward the $2,000 threshold.
Fund up front
$9,500.04
Comes back to you
What it actually costs you
Check it either way: the four lines above sum to $5,344.88, and so does $9,500.04 funded − $5,491.16 sales back + $1,336.00 goods.
You fund $9,500.04, but $6,542.66 of that is reimbursement escrow: the shoppers spend it on your product, so it comes straight back as your own sales revenue ($5,491.16 after the 6% tiktok shop commission). What you truly give up is Sparq's fees, the platform's cut of those sales, the sales tax you cover for shoppers, and the 167 units of product you ship: about $5,344.88 all-in. If shoppers' actual tax runs under the ~12% buffer, the difference returns to your wallet and your real cost comes in below that.
Standard pricing shown - your live rates apply in your dashboard.
Expected Reviews
50
167 units at 30% completion
Sales Proceeds Back to You
$5,491
TikTok Shop pays out each order, minus the 6% tiktok shop commission
Cost of Goods
$1,336
167 units shipped at $8.00 each
True net cost
$5,345
Fund up front − sale proceeds + cost of goods
Effective Cost per Review
$106.90
Net cost across 50 expected reviews
Expected impact on TikTok Shop
+13.8% projected liftGoing 0 → 50 tiktok shop reviews on a fresh listing: 13.8% from review depth. On TikTok Shop, reviews matter up to a healthy baseline, and matter most when a low rating is scaring buyers off. Past that, the feed does the selling.
Where you sit on the TikTok Shop curve
the next review is worth less as proof accumulatesOutreach tier thresholds are set by TikTok Shop and can vary by region and category. Figures are estimates - actual fees and completion rates depend on your shop and campaign.
This plan is one click from being a real campaign
Launch this exact plan on Sparq
Seed 167 reimbursed purchases on TikTok Shop: fund $9,500.04 up front (most of it returns as your own sales), with a projected +13.8% lift and about 50 shoppers choosing to leave an honest review along the way.
Free to start. Sparq verifies every purchase and reimburses shoppers automatically. How Cold Start works