About Planned Markdown
What this tool is for
Markdown decisions are usually made under pressure: the season is closing, stock is too high, and the question becomes "how much off?" rather than "what does this cadence do to margin and cash?" Planned Markdown shifts the conversation earlier by modeling a whole season of price breaks at once.
You enter units on hand, unit cost, the original ticket price, the season exit date, and up to six markdown dates and rates. The planner returns maintained margin, expected ending stock, cash recovered, and margin erosion — with a slow / planned / fast sensitivity band rather than a single false-precision answer.
About the founder
Planned Markdown is built and run by Aaron Whitfield, a solo founder with a background in software and a long-running interest in retail operations, pricing math, and decision tools. He runs the product, support, and roadmap directly. If you have a question or a feature request, you can reach him at [email protected].
The site is intentionally small: one model, one core calculator, and a focused set of retail math guides and calculators. The goal is to make the schedule decision clearer, not to build an enterprise platform.
Scope and limits
What the model does and does not claim
The planner is a modeling tool, not a forecasting service. Every output depends on the sell-through assumptions you supply, and the sensitivity range is only as useful as those assumptions are honest.
It does
Estimate maintained margin, ending stock, cash recovered, and margin erosion for a given markdown schedule and demand assumption.
It does not
Predict demand. It does not replace your point-of-sale data, buy-planning system, or experienced judgment.
It is useful for
Comparing early-shallow versus late-deep plans, setting a margin floor before the season, and stress-testing a schedule with a range.
It is not
An open-to-buy system, an ERP module, or a demand-forecasting engine. For those, export the plan and reconcile it in your own system.
How the project is run
The product is bootstrapped and independent. There is no external funding, no ad tracking beyond anonymous usage analytics, and no plan to sell user data. The free tier exists to be useful on its own; Pro exists for users who need persistent plans and memo exports.
Billing is handled by Paddle, our Merchant of Record. Payments, tax, invoices, and refund routing are managed by Paddle on our behalf.
Where to go next
- Methodology
How the planner's math works, including the depletion model and sensitivity band.
- Contact
Support email, response expectations, and refund requests.
- Pricing
Free core features and Pro features compared.
- Markdown planner
Model a full schedule and compare scenarios side by side.
Answers