Are the figures spoken about NET or GROSS?

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8 years ago

This blog post is actually a question to myself, but i thought I'd do some research and see what others have to say on the matter, the answers may well be useful to others.

We've all seen the claims, "make x amount of dollars/pounds/yen/widgets in y amount of time". But my question is this.. are these figures they claim GROSS amounts or NET?

If you're not sure what i'm talking about.. read on.

Lets take a hypothetical quoted figure of 50k, the time frame really doesn't matter at this point (it does matter in the long term however, as does the currency/country).

so the advert/post will go something along the lines of 'earn 50k in 6 months' or something like that. A big figure, and not to be sniffed at in any terms, but if this is a Gross/turnover figure and doesnt take in to consideration the costs of running the business then it may not be as attractive as first thought.

Costs such as, and not limited to, electricity, heating, property, maintenance, VA's, equipment, consumables, subscriptions, services, saas, domain registration, hosting, commissions etc.

That's not to mention income tax, VAT, Import duties and taxes etc.

So.. are these figures people speak of Gross or NET?

Remember Turnover is Vanity, Profit is Sanity..