AtlasCalcsUtility Calculation Suite
2026-09-21 7 min read

Wholesaling Profit Calculator

The wholesale profit after marketing and deal costs for a wholesale deal. Live calculator with worked steps and charts.

Calculator

After-Repair Value (ARV) Help
$

The value once all repairs are complete.

Purchase / Contract Price
$
Rehab Cost
$
Holding & Selling Costs
$
Selling Costs(%) Help
%

Commission plus closing costs, as a share of sale price.

Assignment Fee Charged
$

This wholesale deal calculator runs on a full rental pro-forma: rent is annualised and reduced by vacancy, every operating expense is itemised to reach NOI, and the loan amortises monthly at the rate entered. Results update live as you type.

Results

Critical

Wholesale Profit

$0

The assignment fee the deal actually supports.

Assignment Fee Charged

$10,000

Above the spread the end buyer will pay.

End Buyer’s Maximum Price

$191,400

The 70%-rule ceiling for the flipper you assign to.

Spread Available

$0

The gap between your contract price and the buyer’s ceiling.

End Buyer’s Projected Profit

$89,400

What the flipper keeps after paying your fee.

After-Repair Value

$360,000

Rehab Cost

$30,000

Contract Price

$210,000

Fee as % of Contract Price

0.00%

Live results update as you type — currently showing wholesale profit of $0. Replace the defaults with your own rent roll, tax bill and insurance quote for an exact comparison.

Visualizations

Splitting the ARV

360,000ARV
-30,000Rehab
-30,600Holding + selling
0Your fee
89,400Buyer profit

Loan Balance Over the Term

Wholesale Fee

0$
020,000

Formula

The wholesaling model prices the assignment: the fee charged to the end buyer minus the marketing, earnest money at risk and deal costs it took to find and control the contract.

Profit = Assignment fee − Marketing and deal costs

Variables

SymbolNameUnitDescription
FeeAssignment fee$What the end buyer pays for the contract
CostsDeal costs$Marketing, title, earnest money risk

Explanation

Wholesaling is a sales business with real estate attached: the profit is the spread between the fee and the cost of producing the deal, and it is active income by definition.

Step-by-Step Calculation

Follow each step to understand how the result is calculated from your inputs.

Step 1

Price the deal from the end buyer’s perspective using the 70% rule.

Buyer max = ARV × 0.70 − rehab − holding − selling costs
ARV:$360,000
Rehab:$30,000
Intermediate: $252,000 − $30,000 − $9,000 − $21,600
Result: $191,400 buyer ceiling
Step 2

The spread is the room between that ceiling and your contract price.

Spread = buyer max − contract price
Contract:$210,000
Intermediate: $191,400 − $210,000
Result: $0 spread
Step 3

Your fee comes out of that spread — and only that spread.

Profit = min(assignment fee, spread)
Fee:$10,000
Intermediate: $10,000 exceeds the $0 spread
Result: $0 profit
Final Answer
$0

Worked Examples

See how the calculator works with different scenarios.

Scenario

The wholesaling profit calculator run on the values above, showing the full calculation path rather than only the answer.

Inputs

Arv:360000
Rehab Cost:30000

Calculation

1. Price the deal from the end buyer’s perspective using the 70% rule. → $191,400 buyer ceiling 2. The spread is the room between that ceiling and your contract price. → $0 spread 3. Your fee comes out of that spread — and only that spread. → $0 profit

Result

Wholesale Profit: $0

Interpretation

A $360,000 ARV supports a $191,400 buyer ceiling against a $210,000 contract, a $0 spread; a $10,000 fee leaves the flipper $89,400.

Understanding Your Result

Your Result: Wholesale Profit: $0

Typical range: Assignment fees run from a few thousand dollars on small deals to $20,000+ on larger ones, but the fee can never exceed the spread the end buyer’s 70% rule allows.

What This Means

Wholesaling is a sales business with real estate attached: the profit is the spread between the fee and the cost of producing the deal, and it is active income by definition.

Why It Matters

A $360,000 ARV supports a $191,400 buyer ceiling against a $210,000 contract, a $0 spread; a $10,000 fee leaves the flipper $89,400.

Professional Interpretation

A $360,000 ARV supports a $191,400 buyer ceiling against a $210,000 contract, a $0 spread; a $10,000 fee leaves the flipper $89,400.

How this is calculated

The wholesaling model prices the assignment: the fee charged to the end buyer minus the marketing, earnest money at risk and deal costs it took to find and control the contract.

What drives the result

Each strategy isolates a profit source. Flipping earns the spread between all-in cost and resale. BRRRR earns the value created by rehab, then recovers cash through a refinance. Wholesaling earns a fee for assigning a contract. House hacking converts your own housing cost into investment income.

Recommendations

  • •A fee above the spread kills the deal for the end buyer — build your buyer list before you contract, and price to both sides.
  • •Wholesaling is a marketing business: the margin comes from motivated sellers, not from squeezing the flipper.

Educational Content

Introduction

Beyond buy-and-hold, real estate investors use repeatable playbooks — flipping, the BRRRR loop, wholesaling, house hacking and short-term rentals. Each prices a specific edge: buying below value, adding value with rehab, or monetising a property more intensively.

Concept Explanation

Each strategy isolates a profit source. Flipping earns the spread between all-in cost and resale. BRRRR earns the value created by rehab, then recovers cash through a refinance. Wholesaling earns a fee for assigning a contract. House hacking converts your own housing cost into investment income.

Applications

▸Pricing a flip offer with the 70% rule before the negotiation starts
▸Planning a BRRRR refinance so the cash-out returns your original down payment
▸Modelling whether an Airbnb premium beats a standard lease after cleaning, furnishing and vacancy
▸Testing whether renting out rooms covers the mortgage on a house hack

Benefits

  • •Forces the profit to be priced at offer time, not discovered at closing
  • •Makes the capital recycling of BRRRR explicit: how much cash actually comes back out
  • •Compares active income (wholesaling, flipping) against passive holds on the same page

Limitations

  • •Rehab budgets overrun more often than not — carry a contingency and a timeline buffer
  • •Strategy returns depend on executing in a short window; a slow sale or refinance erases thin margins
  • •Short-term rental income depends on regulation and seasonality that a single occupancy input cannot fully capture

Best Practices

  • •Get contractor bids before the offer, and add 10–20% contingency to whatever they say
  • •Underwrite the refinance at today’s rates and a conservative appraised value — hope is not a financing plan
  • •For short-term rentals, model both a strong and a weak season before buying furniture

Common Misconceptions

Myth: The 70% rule is a valuation.
Truth: It is a screening heuristic that already embeds profit and buying costs; use it to filter listings, then underwrite properly.
Myth: BRRRR means buying with no money.
Truth: It means recovering your capital after adding value — until the refinance closes, your cash is fully at risk.
Myth: Wholesaling requires no capital or licence.
Truth: It requires earnest money at risk, marketing spend, and in many states a licence or disclosure rules — know yours before assigning contracts.

Practical Tips

  • •Track your cost per contracted deal — marketing spend is the true cost of goods in wholesaling
  • •Know your state’s rules on assignment, disclosure and licensing before your first contract

Common Mistakes

Pricing the fee off the spread instead of the buyer’s numbers.
End buyers underwrite their own margin; the fee has to fit inside it.
Forgetting earnest money at risk.
A failed assignment can cost the deposit — that risk belongs in the model.

Assumptions

This calculator makes the following assumptions to provide estimates:

Assignable contract: The contract permits assignment and the buyer performs.

Limitations

Be aware of these limitations when using this calculator:

Limitation: Rehab budgets overrun more often than not — carry a contingency and a timeline buffer
Limitation: Strategy returns depend on executing in a short window; a slow sale or refinance erases thin margins
Limitation: Short-term rental income depends on regulation and seasonality that a single occupancy input cannot fully capture

Frequently Asked Questions

Answers to common questions about this calculator.

How much should an assignment fee be?
$5,000–$15,000 is typical on single-family wholesale deals, or roughly 3–6% of contract price where spreads allow; the buyer’s margin sets the ceiling.
Who uses the wholesaling profit calculator?
It is used by rental investors screening and pricing deals, by owner-operators budgeting expenses and rents, and by agents, lenders and advisers sanity-checking the numbers before money moves. It sits in the Strategies group of the Real Estate Investing section of Atlascalcs.
How accurate is the wholesaling profit calculator?
Every figure follows from the inputs using standard property underwriting mathematics, so it is accurate to the quality of the values you enter. Lenders, appraisers and tax assessors each apply their own adjustments, so expect small differences against formal documents.
Do I need to sign up or pay to use this calculator?
No. Every Atlascalcs calculator is free, runs entirely in your browser and never asks for an account. Nothing you enter is uploaded or stored.
Can I use these numbers in a formal valuation or loan application?
The calculator is an underwriting aid, not an appraisal or a lender offer. Lenders and appraisers apply their own adjustments, so treat the output as a disciplined estimate to bring to those conversations.
How do I choose realistic inputs?
Pull rent from comparable leases, property tax from the current assessment, insurance from a quote, and management and maintenance from what operators in your market actually pay. Seller pro-formas are marketing documents.

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Related Guides

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Glossary

Technical terms used in mortgage calculations explained in plain language.

Assignment Fee
The flat fee a wholesaler charges the end buyer for assigning the purchase contract.

Authoritative References

Trusted sources and standards referenced by this calculator.

Applicable Standards

Level-payment amortisation, payments assumed in arrearsIncome and expenses annualised; percentages entered as annual ratesStraight-line depreciation per IRC §168 recovery periodsMoney rounded for display only; all calculations run at full precision

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Page Information

Last Updated:

2026-09-21

Version:

2.0.0

License:

Free to use for educational and professional purposes.