Cost-Plus Pricing

Biological Parallel

Hummingbirds visiting flowers face ironclad cost-plus economics: each flower must yield at least 7 times the calories burned hovering to extract its nectar, or the bird operates at a net loss. With heart rates exceeding 1,200 beats per minute and the highest mass-specific metabolic rate of any vertebrate, hummingbirds literally cannot afford flowers yielding insufficient markup—they would starve within hours. They ruthlessly exclude low-margin flowers from their route, just as businesses eliminate products below minimum viable margin. Biology enforces cost-plus pricing through thermodynamic law, not accounting preference.