Costco
Numbers
What the show said, with receipts
Every figure the hosts put on the record for Costco, with its source and the date it was captured. The audited statements from the company's own filings are under Financials.
Freshness
0
Current (≤6 mo)
0
Recent (≤18 mo)
9
Older
Freshness is measured from each figure’s capture date, not from the episode date. An older figure is not wrong; it is a figure that has had time to move.
Reported figures
Annual revenue (FY2024)
2 yr$254B
3rd-largest retailer in the world
[Costco 2024 10-K + Acquired episode Costco] · as of 2024-09
- Ben:Costco has grown revenue right about 10% for over 30 years in a row.[Acquired Costco, ch. Intro]
- Ben:Their revenue per square foot of their warehouses belongs more in a conversation with Tiffany than Walmart.[Acquired Costco, ch. Intro]
Annual membership fee revenue
2 yr~$4.8B
approximately equal to total net operating income — the fees ARE the business
[Costco 2024 10-K] · as of 2024-09
Net income returned to shareholders (FY2014–2023)
3 yr~80%
$25.7B returned vs ~$37.4B cumulative net income — 4 special dividends ($14.4B total) + regular dividends ($11.5B) + modest buybacks ($4.5B). Including the Dec 2023 $15/share special pushes the ratio above 85%.
[Acquired episode Costco (citing Alex Morris / The Science of Hitting) + Costco 10-K filings FY2014-FY2023] · as of 2023-12
- Ben:There's this crazy stat from The Science of Hitting that the company has returned 80% of net income to shareholders in the last decade rather than reinvesting it in growth.[Acquired Costco, ch. Capital allocation]
- Backup research (parallel research subagent, 2026-05-25): computed cumulative shareholder returns of ~$25.7B against ~$37.4B cumulative net income across FY2014-2023 → ~69%. Adding the Dec 2023 special ($15/share = ~$6.7B) pushes the ratio to ~87%. The Acquired '80%' framing falls inside this range depending on the exact decade boundary.[SEC EDGAR — Costco 10-K filings]
- Alex Morris's original computation — The Science of Hitting newsletter (paywalled). The Acquired hosts cite this as the source of the 80% figure.[The Science of Hitting — The Costco Snowball]
Paid memberships
2 yr73M+
Executive (Gold Star) renewal rate ~93% in US/Canada
[Costco 2024 10-K] · as of 2024-09
Warehouses worldwide
2 yr890+
across 14 countries — US, Canada, Mexico, UK, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Spain, France, China, Iceland, New Zealand, Sweden
[Costco 2024 10-K] · as of 2024-09
Gross margin
2 yr~12%
vs ~25% industry average for retail — INTENTIONALLY low to defend the membership thesis
[Costco 2024 10-K + Acquired episode Costco] · as of 2024-09
- Ben:They have decided internally that they are not allowed to markup anything more than 14% above what the suppliers sell it to them for. Things like electronics, they actually can only mark up 6%, 7%, 8%. Maximum is 14%.[Acquired Costco, ch. Margin Cap]
- Ben:The only exception to this is Kirkland Signature, where they cheat a little bit and let themselves go up to 15%. Quite indulgent.[Acquired Costco, ch. Margin Cap]
SKU count per warehouse
3 yr~4,000
vs Walmart's ~142,000 — the constraint produces the buying power
[Acquired episode Costco] · as of 2024
Hot dog + soda combo price
NaN yr$1.50
unchanged since 1985 — Sinegal: "if you raise the price of the f***ing hot dog, I will kill you"
[Acquired episode Costco; 2018 Costco shareholder remarks (Jelinek)] · as of 1985-present
- David:Sol calls up Hebrew National hotdogs and asks them if they can supply them with hotdogs to sell at the stores. Hebrew says, not only will we sell you hotdogs to sell, we'll supply the cart too. Thus, the Costco $1.50 hot dog and soda deal is born. Still to this day, it's $1.50 47 years later.[Acquired Costco, ch. Price Club origin]