Marginsafe AI agent illustration

Marginsafe

Costing & Margin Guardrails

Marginsafe is the unit economics agent that prevents “good ideas” from turning into margin problems. It builds a clean product cost model from the inputs Product Development actually controls—BOM, packaging, labor assumptions, overhead/line rates, yield, scrap, and freight—and turns it into decision-ready guardrails. Marginsafe stress-tests the assumptions that usually get hand-waved early (yield, line speed, MOQs, ingredient volatility, packaging inflation, and co-man fees) and flags the margin killers before decisions get locked in. It also keeps the cost story consistent across versions: when specs change, Marginsafe shows the delta and what must be true to stay inside your margin targets. Built to support judgment, not replace it: your team chooses trade-offs, Marginsafe makes the economics explicit and defensible.

Primary Outputs

Typical deliverables
Unit cost build: BOM + packaging + labor + overhead/line rates with clear assumptions and sources
Margin view: contribution and gross margin snapshots by channel assumptions and case configuration
Sensitivity analysis: top drivers (yield, line speed, ingredient volatility, packaging, freight) and breakpoints
Guardrails: must-be-true thresholds to hit target margin (e.g., min yield, max cost per lb, max freight)
Margin risk flags: assumptions that are weak, missing, or likely to fail at scale
Spec-to-cost deltas: what changed in the spec and the exact cost/margin impact by version

Core Capabilities

What it does
Builds defensible unit economics from BOM, packaging, labor, overhead, yield, scrap, and freight inputs
Stress-tests fragile assumptions early (yield, line speed, MOQs, co-man fees, and input volatility)
Creates margin guardrails so teams know what must be true before approving specs and scale decisions
Identifies the true margin drivers and quantifies breakpoints where the product becomes unviable
Keeps costing consistent across spec versions and highlights the exact delta when changes occur
Flags margin risks before gates and approvals—so Finance doesn’t discover the problem after launch

Operational Fit

How it’s used
Used By

Product development, R&D, packaging engineering, operations, sourcing, and finance business partners.

Used For

Early feasibility, spec decisions, co-man selection trade-offs, pilot-to-scale economics, and gate review support.

Typical Questions
  • What is the true unit cost, and what assumptions is it built on?
  • Which 2–3 variables will blow up margin if they move?
  • What must be true to hit our target margin before we approve specs and scale?