How many layers and neurons on the layers does a neural network need for for sales prediction? The inputs (features) and expected output for my ANN are these:


Input 1: Product id (number, cast to double)
Input 2: Year in the past (1900..2017, cast to double)
Input 3: Month of year (1..12, cast to double)
Expected output: Sale of month (number of units sold, cast to double)


I need to predict the sale of a product for a certain month in a certain year. How many layers and how many neurons on there layers should I put?
Every answer you get is just an opinion, it is based on experience.
My answer is a single hidden layer of 5 neurons.

Besides, I recommend you to use a TWEANN system (Topology and Weight Evolving ANN).

Such system applys genetic algorithm to search and optimize an ANN with the optimal topology and weights.

Take a look at NEAT and DXNN.