San Diego, California
The Ledger
1 August 2026
Hosted store platforms are good software with a fee stack most owners never total up, and there are two honest alternatives depending on whether you want to own the site or hand off the work.
The honest arithmetic of running merch yourself, from platform fees and blanks to the hours nobody invoices for, and what the managed alternative actually pays.
Fully managed is a phrase everyone uses and few itemize, so here is the whole list of what we do, the one thing left for the client, and the answer to the 20 percent objection.
