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    What costs go into each bucket for a tech / hardware product startup?

    Same question, your business

    Quick answer

    For a tech or hardware product, direct costs are your bill of materials plus assembly, overheads are your production setup, R&D is heavy, sales & marketing drives distribution, and G&A is the back office.

    The breakdown

    • Direct costs (): components and raw materials (bill of materials), assembly/manufacturing labour, packaging, and shipping.
    • Overheads: equipment, tooling, testing setup, warehousing, and maintenance.
    • Sales & marketing: demos, trade shows, distributor and channel margins, sales team, and marketing.
    • R&D (usually heavy): engineering, prototyping, design, testing, and certification — often your largest early investment.
    • G&A: finance, legal (including IP), HR, admin, compliance.

    Our honest take

    Hardware carries real per-unit costs and heavy upfront R&D, so keep them clearly separate. The per-unit direct cost sets your margin; the R&D is a big fixed bet you recover over volume. Blur them and you'll misprice.