Why Export Voucher company contribution and marketing ROI belong in one model
A Korean Export Voucher award is not the complete project budget.
The participating company normally funds part of the voucher, pays VAT and other ineligible cash costs, and commits internal labor, travel, and follow-up sales capacity.
A decision based only on the government award can therefore understate the cash requirement and overstate the economic return.
This calculator first converts the signed government award and subsidy rate into total voucher value, then allocates planned eligible spend between government support and company contribution.
The second half of the model asks a different question: can the attributed contribution from additional export revenue recover the cash that the company actually commits?
Headline pipeline or sales targets are reduced by a marketing attribution rate and a realization rate, then translated from revenue to contribution with a user-entered contribution margin.
The result presents company-cash ROI beside full-project ROI so a subsidy does not hide weak underlying project economics.
It also shows projected voucher utilization, the distance to the 70% and 85% notice bands, break-even projected revenue, simple payback, and fixed downside and upside cases.
Decisions this worksheet can support
- Translate a signed award and subsidy rate into total voucher value and required company contribution.
- Separate eligible service spend before VAT from ineligible cash costs and internal execution cost.
- Estimate whether the planned eligible spend reaches the notice utilization bands.
- Compare ROI on company cash with ROI on the full economic cost of the marketing project.
- Reverse-calculate the projected incremental revenue needed to recover company cash.
- Review a 70%, 100%, and 130% revenue sensitivity without changing the other assumptions.
Scope and date of the 2026 notice preset
The official preset reflects the third-round 2026 participating-enterprise notice published by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups on July 8, 2026 and checked on August 11, 2026.
The notice is identified as MSS Notice No. 2026-444 and describes a July 1 through December 31, 2026 program period, subject to the detailed conditions in the notice and agreement.
It groups applicants by prior-year direct and indirect exports and caps government support for each export stage.
It separately limits the subsidy percentage according to latest finalized annual sales, which changes the minimum company share.
Third-round 2026 Export Voucher stages, prior-year export ranges, and government support caps| Notice stage | Prior-year exports in USD | Government support cap |
|---|
| Domestic-stage enterprise | Below USD 1,000 | KRW 30,000,000 |
| Export beginner | USD 1,000 to below USD 100,000 | KRW 30,000,000 |
| Promising exporter | USD 100,000 to below USD 1,000,000 | KRW 45,000,000 |
| Growing exporter | USD 1,000,000 to below USD 5,000,000 | KRW 70,000,000 |
| Strong exporter | USD 5,000,000 or more | KRW 100,000,000 |
Third-round 2026 Export Voucher maximum subsidy and minimum company share by latest finalized annual sales| Latest finalized annual sales | Maximum government share | Minimum company share |
|---|
| Below KRW 10 billion | 70% | 30% |
| KRW 10 billion to below KRW 30 billion | 60% | 40% |
| KRW 30 billion or more | 50% | 50% |
A preset is not an eligibility or award decision
The table values are notice caps rather than promised awards.
Actual selection can reflect verified export evidence, enterprise status, exclusions, evaluation, available budget, and program-specific review.
The button in the calculator merely copies the inferred cap and maximum rate into editable fields.
Once a company has a selection letter or agreement, its actual award and actual subsidy rate should replace the preset.
Funding formulas from award to company cash
1. Total voucher value
Total voucher value equals the actual government award divided by the actual subsidy rate expressed as a decimal.
A KRW 45,000,000 award at 70% produces an unrounded voucher value of KRW 64,285,714.2857.
The interface displays rounded won while the calculation uses the unrounded value for subsequent allocation.
2. Required company contribution
Required company contribution equals total voucher value minus the government award.
The same example creates an unrounded required company contribution of KRW 19,285,714.2857.
This is the planned voucher funding share, not yet the full company cash outlay.
3. Support and company share actually used
Recognized eligible spend is the smaller of planned eligible service spend before VAT and total voucher value.
Government support used is the smaller of the award and recognized spend multiplied by the actual subsidy rate.
Company contribution used is recognized spend minus government support used.
Eligible service spend above the voucher is treated as 100% company cash rather than blended at the subsidy rate.
4. Company cash and full project investment
Company cash outlay adds company contribution used, eligible spend above the voucher, ineligible cash costs, and internal execution cost.
Full project investment adds all eligible service spend, ineligible cash costs, and internal execution cost regardless of who funds the eligible portion.
Those two cost bases create the two ROI lenses shown in the result.
Compact formula map
- Total voucher value = government award ÷ subsidy rate.
- Required company contribution = total voucher value − government award.
- Recognized eligible spend = minimum of planned eligible spend and total voucher value.
- Government support used = minimum of award and recognized spend × subsidy rate.
- Company contribution used = recognized eligible spend − government support used.
- Company cash outlay = company contribution used + above-voucher spend + ineligible cash cost + internal cost.
- Full project investment = all eligible service spend + ineligible cash cost + internal cost.
What belongs in each project-cost field
Settlement eligibility is more specific than ordinary business usefulness.
A cost can support the campaign yet remain outside voucher settlement because of VAT treatment, indirect-cost rules, an unapproved service category, documentation failure, timing, standard-price review, or another program restriction.
Use the signed agreement and latest settlement guide to classify each cost; the calculator cannot make that decision.
Export Voucher project cost fields, examples, and evidence checks| Field | Possible items | Evidence and boundary check |
|---|
| Eligible service spend before VAT | Approved advertising, brand development, design, exhibition, translation, research, legal, certification, or other menu services | Use only supplier charges expected to be accepted under the agreement, service menu, standard price, delivery, inspection, and settlement documents |
| Ineligible cash cost | VAT, indirect expense, unapproved work, nonsettled travel, unsupported purchases, or a portion outside the approved scope | Include cash paid by the company even when it does not increase voucher utilization |
| Internal execution cost | Employee time, management review, translation quality control, travel, samples, logistics coordination, and post-campaign sales follow-up | Use a documented internal costing method and avoid adding any item already included in supplier charges |
| Eligible spend above voucher | Approved-type supplier scope that exceeds the calculated voucher value | The model automatically identifies this amount and assigns it entirely to company cash |
Do not count the same cost twice
If an employee cost is already built into a supplier invoice, do not add the same labor as internal execution cost.
If VAT is included in the cash-cost field, the eligible service field should remain before VAT.
Duplicate recognition across another subsidy program also requires careful separation and official confirmation.
Preserve an assumption ledger
Record the document, owner, date, and confidence level behind every material input.
A short ledger makes later settlement, post-project review, and budget approval much easier than reconstructing assumptions after the campaign.
Projected utilization and the 70% and 85% bands
Projected utilization equals recognized eligible spend divided by total voucher value.
It is not every won paid to a supplier, because VAT, indirect expense, unapproved scope, incomplete evidence, or a disallowed item may not enter the final recognized numerator.
The third-round 2026 notice states that utilization below 70% may restrict participation for two years, while utilization from 70% to below 85% may produce a five-point evaluation deduction for two years.
The calculator displays the additional recognized spend needed to reach each threshold, but only the operator can determine final utilization and any consequence.
Below 70%
This is the notice restriction-risk band.
Check delivery, inspection, evidence, settlement timing, and any approved change process promptly.
70% to below 85%
This is the notice evaluation-deduction-risk band.
Review useful approved work that can genuinely be delivered and settled rather than spending only to reach a percentage.
85% or more
This is outside those utilization penalty bands in the cited notice.
It does not make every expense eligible or eliminate documentation and agreement requirements.
Utilization is a constraint, not the business objective
Purchasing low-value work only to increase utilization can increase company contribution and management cost while reducing full-project ROI.
Confirm that any added service fits the approved plan, can be delivered and inspected before the relevant deadline, has complete evidence, and supports a measurable market objective.
If economics and utilization conflict, seek written operator guidance about an approved change instead of assuming a cost will settle.
Converting export revenue into incremental contribution
Revenue is not profit and a pipeline is not realized revenue.
The model applies three separate filters so a marketing target can be reviewed as an economic scenario rather than credited at face value.
Each filter needs evidence and an owner because a small change can materially alter break-even revenue and ROI.
- Projected incremental export revenue
Start from the revenue expected above a credible no-campaign baseline during the chosen horizon.
Exclude ordinary account growth, renewed orders that would probably happen anyway, and unrelated channel expansion.
- Marketing attribution rate
Use this rate to remove the share caused by price, exchange rates, inventory recovery, product changes, sales hiring, seasonality, or other simultaneous actions.
Strong campaign-level tracking or a defensible comparison supports a higher rate than a broad management estimate.
- Revenue realization rate
Reduce inquiry value, quotations, memoranda, or pipeline to the portion expected to become recognized and collected sales.
Consider sales-cycle length, cancellations, credit risk, production capacity, delivery, and collection timing.
- Contribution margin rate
Remove product cost and sale-linked marketplace, payment, commission, packing, fulfillment, international freight, and variable support costs from revenue.
Accounting gross margin may be unsuitable when it omits a material variable cost linked to the additional export order.
Adjusted revenue and contribution
Adjusted incremental revenue equals projected incremental revenue multiplied by attribution and realization.
Incremental contribution equals adjusted incremental revenue multiplied by contribution margin.
That contribution is the modeled benefit available to recover the project cost.
Break-even projected revenue
Divide company cash outlay by contribution margin, attribution, and realization.
The output is the required headline incremental revenue before those three filters, not the adjusted revenue or contract pipeline.
A zero denominator correctly makes break-even unavailable rather than presenting an artificial finite value.
Two ROI lenses and simple payback
Company-cash ROI
Company net benefit equals incremental contribution minus company cash outlay.
Company-cash ROI divides that net benefit by company cash outlay.
This lens is useful for liquidity, approval, and the direct private return from participation.
Full-project ROI
Full-project net benefit equals incremental contribution minus full project investment.
Full-project ROI divides that net benefit by full project investment, including the portion funded by government support.
This lens tests whether the activity itself creates value before the funding source changes the company return.
ROI lift from support
The calculator subtracts full-project ROI from company-cash ROI and reports the difference in percentage points.
A large lift is not automatically bad, but it signals that the decision depends heavily on support and may not repeat without it.
A positive company return paired with a negative full-project return triggers a specific warning.
Simple payback
Simple payback equals analysis months multiplied by company cash outlay and divided by incremental contribution over that horizon.
It assumes contribution arrives evenly and does not model invoice dates, collections, deposits, financing cost, tax, exchange-rate movement, or the time value of money.
Use a monthly cash-flow schedule when the sales cycle or collection timing is material.
Worked example: KRW 45 million award and KRW 200 million projected revenue
Consider a company with USD 500,000 in prior-year exports and KRW 8 billion in latest finalized annual sales.
It enters a signed government award of KRW 45,000,000 at a 70% subsidy rate, KRW 55,000,000 of eligible service spend before VAT, KRW 5,500,000 of ineligible cash cost, and KRW 3,000,000 of internal execution cost.
Its six-month scenario uses KRW 200,000,000 of projected incremental export revenue, 80% marketing attribution, 80% realization, and a 35% contribution margin.
These values explain the model and are not official benchmarks, market averages, recommended budgets, or promised results.
Worked Export Voucher company contribution and overseas marketing ROI result| Result | Calculated value | Interpretation |
|---|
| Total voucher value | KRW 64,285,714 | KRW 45,000,000 divided by 70% |
| Required company contribution | KRW 19,285,714 | Total voucher value less the award |
| Projected utilization | 85.555556% | KRW 55,000,000 recognized spend divided by unrounded voucher value |
| Government support used | KRW 38,500,000 | 70% of planned recognized spend |
| Company contribution used | KRW 16,500,000 | Recognized spend less government support used |
| Company cash outlay | KRW 25,000,000 | Contribution used plus ineligible cash and internal cost |
| Full project investment | KRW 63,500,000 | All eligible, ineligible, and internal project cost |
| Adjusted incremental revenue | KRW 128,000,000 | KRW 200,000,000 × 80% × 80% |
| Incremental contribution | KRW 44,800,000 | Adjusted revenue × 35% |
| Company-cash ROI | 79.2% | KRW 19,800,000 company net benefit divided by company cash |
| Full-project ROI | -29.448819% | Negative after charging the complete project resource cost |
| Break-even projected revenue | KRW 111,607,143 | Headline incremental revenue needed under the entered filters |
| Simple payback | 3.348214 months | Even contribution timing assumed |
The central interpretation
The private company-cash return is positive because government support reduces the company denominator.
The full-project return is negative because the modeled KRW 44,800,000 contribution does not recover KRW 63,500,000 of complete resource cost.
Management can still value market learning or strategic entry, but it should identify that benefit separately instead of treating the subsidy-funded cost as economically free.
How to build defensible performance assumptions
Set a no-campaign baseline
Compare the same product, market, account type, and horizon under a credible no-campaign condition.
Adjust for seasonality, price, currency, inventory, distribution expansion, and sales capacity before calling the difference incremental.
Document the source period and calculation owner.
Connect activity to opportunity
Use campaign parameters, landing pages, inquiry sources, event badge scans, buyer records, quotation identifiers, and CRM stages where available.
A documented path from activity to opportunity supports attribution better than a broad year-over-year sales change.
Calibrate realization by pipeline stage
A qualified buyer inquiry, requested quotation, trial order, signed purchase order, shipped order, and collected invoice should not share one probability.
Weight opportunities by stage and inspect historical conversion where enough comparable observations exist.
Use contribution rather than gross sales
Estimate variable product and order costs for the target country, product mix, channel, delivery term, and payment method.
A blended company margin can mislead when the campaign shifts sales toward a low-margin marketplace or high-freight destination.
Minimum assumption ledger
- Input name, amount or rate, currency, period, and owner.
- Source document, report, query, worksheet, or management approval.
- Whether the value is observed, contracted, forecast, or illustrative.
- Low, base, and high assumptions with a short reason for each.
- Known dependencies such as inventory, certification, capacity, or distributor action.
Using the 70%, 100%, and 130% sensitivity
The result table changes only projected incremental export revenue to 70%, 100%, and 130% of the entered amount.
Attribution, realization, contribution margin, analysis horizon, and company cash stay fixed so the isolated revenue sensitivity is easy to read.
The downside is not a statistical confidence interval and the upside is not a forecast.
Replace the base input with a separately reasoned scenario when cost, margin, attribution, realization, or timing would also change.
Questions to ask for each export marketing revenue sensitivity case| Case | Revenue factor | Decision question |
|---|
| Downside | 70% | Can the company absorb the cash exposure and delayed payback if base revenue misses by 30%? |
| Base | 100% | Is every assumption tied to evidence and approved by the accountable owner? |
| Upside | 130% | Can production, inventory, fulfillment, credit, and service capacity support the additional orders? |
Stress the denominator as well
A real downside can include lower margin, lower realization, added travel, a delayed launch, or ineligible settlement, not only lower sales.
Run separate copies of the calculation with those inputs changed when management needs a fuller risk view.
Step-by-step operating workflow
- Prepare prior-year export evidence and the latest finalized financial statements, then use the preset only as an initial notice reference.
- Read the selection letter and signed agreement, and enter the actual government award and actual subsidy rate.
- Separate supplier quote value before VAT from VAT and every other cost expected to remain outside settlement.
- Estimate internal labor, travel, sample logistics, quality review, campaign operation, and sales follow-up without duplicating supplier scope.
- Enter only incremental export revenue above a credible no-campaign baseline for the selected horizon.
- Set attribution and realization from campaign and pipeline evidence, then use a contribution margin that reflects the destination, channel, and product mix.
- Review utilization, additional spend to the notice bands, company cash, full project investment, both ROI measures, break-even revenue, and payback together.
- Save the input assumptions and approval date, then replace the plan with actual settled cost and actual collected revenue after completion.
Performance evidence
- Campaign spend, reach, visits, inquiries, quotations, orders, shipments, and collections.
- New and existing buyers separated in the sales ledger.
- Country, product, channel, and cohort definitions kept consistent.
- Price, exchange rate, inventory, promotion, and sales-team changes recorded.
- Supplier deliverables and evidence of actual business use.
Settlement evidence
- Approved service scope matched to the actual supplier contract.
- Supply value, VAT, company contribution, payment, and tax documents.
- Standard-price, delivery, inspection, completion, and portal records.
- Funding source separation that prevents duplicate settlement.
- Delivery and inspection timing before the applicable agreement deadline.
Practical use cases
Budget approval after selection
Replace the requested amount with the actual award and convert each supplier quote into eligible value before VAT, ineligible cash, and internal execution.
The company-cash result gives treasury and management a clearer funding request than the company contribution alone.
Mid-program utilization review
Enter only work likely to be delivered, inspected, documented, and accepted for settlement.
The additional-spend outputs show the planning distance to 70% and 85%, while the full-project ROI discourages wasteful threshold spending.
Exhibition and buyer-pipeline review
Do not enter the total face value of meetings or quotations as revenue.
Use realization to reflect the current pipeline stage and attribution to remove sales activity, distributor action, pricing, and other causes outside the funded exhibition work.
Post-project learning and repeat decision
Replace forecast values with final recognized settlement, collected incremental sales, and actual contribution margin.
The gap between planned and actual values reveals whether the weak point was scope, utilization, attribution, conversion, collection, margin, or internal execution.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use the preset values as my actual award?
Use them only as a pre-selection planning reference.
The notice values are caps and maximum rates, so a selected company should enter the amount and rate from its actual letter and agreement.
Where should VAT be entered?
Enter eligible service spend before VAT and place VAT in the ineligible cash-cost field.
Tax recovery, deductibility, and filing are separate questions for the company and its tax adviser.
Why can the government support used be lower than the signed award?
The model applies the subsidy rate only to recognized eligible spend.
When planned eligible spend is below total voucher value, part of both the government share and required company share remains unused.
Can projected utilization exceed 100%?
No.
Recognized spend in the utilization formula is capped at total voucher value, and any eligible service spend above that value appears as company-funded excess.
What is a good ROI percentage?
There is no universal threshold.
Compare the result with funding cost, liquidity, risk tolerance, strategic market-entry value, payback policy, and the return available from alternative projects.
Review the downside and full-project ROI instead of approving a project from the subsidized company return alone.
Does the export and sales preset confirm eligibility?
No.
Enterprise status, industry, evidence rules, exclusions, arrears, sanctions, duplicate support, program budget, and evaluation can all matter.
Confirm the current notice and operator guidance.
Can one expense be settled under two support programs?
Duplicate settlement of the same expense is not allowed.
Keep funding sources and evidence separated, and obtain written guidance before spending when the boundary is unclear.
Improper receipt can lead to recovery and additional sanctions under applicable rules.
Does simple payback show when cash reaches the bank?
No.
It spreads modeled contribution evenly across the analysis horizon and ignores specific contracting, shipping, invoicing, collection, tax, financing, and foreign-exchange timing.
Build a dated cash-flow schedule when those timings affect the decision.
Official references and model limitations
The notice preset was checked on August 11, 2026 against the official ministry notice and the government business-information listing.
Settlement details can change by program and guide, so the latest Export Voucher portal guide, signed agreement, and operator response take priority over this explanatory model.
The current official legal context reviewed for the requirements also includes the SME Framework Act, its Enforcement Decree, the Regional SMEs Act, and Article 33-2 of the Subsidy Management Act.
What the calculator does not decide
This is a user-input planning model, not a selection, legal, tax, accounting, settlement, valuation, or performance opinion.
It does not verify enterprise eligibility, export evidence, service eligibility, standard price, procurement, VAT recovery, agreement compliance, duplicate support, final utilization, sanctions, foreign exchange, attribution, collection, or actual margin.
Default values are formula examples only and are not market benchmarks, acceptable-return thresholds, or performance forecasts.
Confirm material decisions with the program operator and qualified accounting, tax, and legal professionals using current documents.
Recalculate with the signed award and your evidence
Place the selection letter, signed agreement, supplier quotes, internal cost worksheet, and export pipeline evidence beside the calculator and replace every example value.
Review the downside, projected utilization, additional spend to each band, company cash, full project investment, break-even revenue, both ROI measures, and payback as one decision record.
After the program, run the model again with final recognized settlement and collected incremental revenue so the next overseas marketing plan starts from evidence rather than memory.