Shopify Profit
How much of your Shopify sales you keep, and where along the way the rest went.
The cards
What you keep is the first card. What you stopped keeping, and at which point, is every card after it.
Net Profit MarginNet Profit MarginWhat you keep from each sale once every cost is out. When it slips while sales grow, the extra sales are costing more than they bring15% or more is healthy · Contribution MarginContribution MarginWhat each sale leaves behind once the costs that rise with it are paid. That pot has to cover rent, salaries and software30% or more is healthy · Gross MarginGross MarginWhat is left after paying for the goods themselves. Ads, staff and rent all come out of this, so it caps what everything else can cost60% or more is healthy · % COGS of Sales% COGS of SalesThe share of your sales that goes straight back out to pay for the goods. The biggest single lever on profit for most storesUnder 35% is healthy · % Custom Expenses% Custom ExpensesEverything outside product, shipping and fees, as a share of sales. Rising here while sales are flat is the classic quiet profit leakUnder 12% is healthy · Net ProfitNet Profitthe amount grows with sales, the margin tells you whether that growth is worth having. · Contribution ProfitContribution ProfitWhat your sales contribute before any fixed cost is paid. If this does not cover your rent and salaries, more volume will not save you · Gross ProfitGross Profitads, shipping, staff, rent — has to come out of. If it isn't growing with sales, your product costs are rising. · % Shipping Cost% Shipping Costthe gap between the two is either a subsidy or a margin.Under 6% is healthy · % Gateway Cost% Gateway Costa climb usually means a pricier payment mix rather than a price change.Under 2.5% is healthy
Read them in three moves
- What did you keep? Net Profit Margin. Every cost you have entered is already taken off it.
- If that looks thin, what did the selling cost? Contribution Margin — what survives the costs that rise with each order.
- And what did the making cost? Gross Margin — product cost only, nothing else.
The three margins are the whole page. The gaps between them tell you more than any one of them.
Three pairs worth holding together
Gross Margin + % COGS of Sales. These two always add up to 100. Gross Profit is Total Sales minus product cost, so its margin is whatever % COGS of Sales leaves behind. Read one, skip the other.
Gross Margin + Contribution Margin. The drop between them is tax, shipping and advertising. A wide gap means your problem is the cost of selling the product, not the cost of making it — and shipping and ads are both things you can change this week.
Contribution Margin + Net Profit Margin. What sits between those two is gateway fees and custom expenses, nothing else. If that gap is the big one, the two cards that explain it are already on the screen: % Gateway Cost and % Custom Expenses.
The three money cards — Net Profit, Contribution Profit, Gross Profit — carry no grade. There is no universal "good" number of euros or dollars. The seven percentage cards are graded, because a percentage means the same thing at any size.
The tables
The cards give you one margin for the whole store. This is where you find out which market is holding it up, and which one is pulling it down.
Profit Per Country
One row = one country, taken from the shipping address on the order.
Columns: Country · Total SalesTotal SalesTax and shipping are collected, not earned, so this sits above what you keep. Most ratios divide by it, so a move here shifts them all · OrdersOrdersCounts purchases, not money, so it moves even when order sizes don't. Compare with sales to see whether growth came from more buyers or bigger baskets · % COGS of Sales · Gross Profit · Gross Margin · MERMERUnlike platform numbers, this counts every sale, so ad platforms can't double-claim credit. Compare the trend against your gross margin to see if growth is affordableUnder 30% is healthy · Shipping CostShipping CostWhat delivery cost you. Set against what buyers paid for shipping, it shows whether free shipping is winning orders or quietly buying them · %Shipping Cost · % Total Taxes% Total TaxesHelps monitor tax impact on overall revenue. · %Gateway Cost · Contribution Profit · Contribution Margin — each followed by a % △ against your comparison period, except Shipping Cost.
How to scan it
- Sort by Total Sales, highest first. It already opens this way.
- Look across at Contribution Margin.
- The row that matters: a large market whose Contribution Margin sits well below the total row at the bottom. Big and thin costs you far more than small and thin.
Then run it a second way. Sort by %Shipping Cost, highest first, and read Total Sales beside it. A distant market that is still small is a shipping-rate decision. A distant market that is large is a pricing decision.
Then sort by MER, highest first — remember lower is better — and you have the list of markets where advertising is buying the least, with the margin it left behind on the same row.
Filters
Every % △ column on this page stays blank until you tell it what to compare against. Previous period is what fills them; Date Range sets the period being judged.
Filters opens country, customer type and order source, and all three apply here. Pick one country and Profit Per Country is left with a single row — useful for reading the cards for one market, confusing if you forget it is on.
They don't all reach the same rows. Country narrows Shopify sales, ad spend and Amazon together, so MER stays honest. Customer Type and Source of Order narrow Shopify sales only — ad spend stays whole — so under either, MER divides your full ad spend by a smaller sales figure and reads worse than the market did.
On the table itself: the icons above it switch between bar, line, pie and table. In a chart view you get a metrics dropdown (up to three at a time) and a Compare checkbox that draws the previous period behind it. Export downloads what you are looking at.
Watch out for
The table stops at Contribution Profit on purpose. There is no Net Profit column and no custom expenses column, because custom expenses aren't split by country. So per-country profit is always before your fixed costs. A country that reads healthy here can still lose money once those land.
The % △ beside MER is the change in Ad Spend, not the change in MER. The two move differently — spend can rise while MER improves, if sales rose faster. Read the MER value itself and compare it by moving the date range.
% COGS of Sales is not the %COGS on the Amazon P&L. This one divides product cost by Total Sales. The Amazon one divides it by Net Sales, after refunds. The names look alike; the bases are not.
Every number here inherits Cost Settings. An empty shipping panel makes %Shipping Cost read 0, an empty gateway panel makes %Gateway Cost read 0, and all three margins rise to match. Nothing on this page warns you — it just looks good.
Do this first
Read Gross Margin and Contribution Margin side by side. If the drop between them is bigger than you expected, sort Profit Per Country by %Shipping Cost and find the market that is causing it.
See yoursYour three margins, and the country keeping the least of what it sells.
Open Shopify Profit →