Reorder Point Calculator

How it works

The reorder point is the stock level that triggers a new purchase order. It needs to cover the demand you'll see while waiting for the new shipment to arrive — plus a buffer for unexpected spikes or delays.

Average daily sales × lead time = how much you'll sell while waiting for the delivery. Safety stock = the extra buffer on top. Add them together and you get the number that says "order now."

The mistake almost everyone makes

Measuring lead time from order to arrival. The number you need is order to sellable — which includes the supplier's own processing time before anything ships, and your receiving and put-away after the pallet lands. Those two ends are routinely a couple of days that nobody counts, and they are the reason a "correct" reorder point still produces stockouts.

The second is setting it once. A reorder point is a function of your current sales rate. If an item's velocity doubles and the trigger does not move, you have quietly halved the cover it was designed to give you. Recalculate whenever demand shifts noticeably, or use software that recomputes it from real movements.

Third: using an average lead time for an unreliable supplier and stopping there. The average is the right input to this formula — coping with the variance around it is precisely the job of safety stock. If a supplier swings between 4 and 14 days, the fix is a bigger buffer, not a padded lead time.