Revenue tells you what sold. Profit tells you what to do next. Here is how to work out true profit per Shopify order once refunds, product costs, fees and ad spend are counted.
Shopify reports revenue well. It does not tell you how much of each order you keep. Product cost, payment fees, shipping, refunds and ad spend all come out of that number, and they rarely sit in the same place.
1. Start with net revenue, not gross sales
Gross sales include orders that were later refunded or partially refunded. Subtract refunds, discounts and taxes collected before you look at margin, otherwise every later step is inflated.
2. Attach a real cost to every product
Cost of goods is the line most stores estimate. Record a cost per variant, including landed costs such as inbound freight and duties, so margin is calculated per order rather than per month.
3. Subtract the costs Shopify does not show on the order
Payment processing and Shopify transaction fees
Shipping labels and packaging
App subscriptions, allocated per order
Ad spend from Meta, Google and TikTok for the same period
4. Read profit by order, product and channel
A healthy blended margin can hide products or channels that lose money on every sale. Break profit down by SKU and by acquisition channel before you scale spend.
ProfitDesk pulls orders, refunds, product costs and ad spend into one order-level P&L, so this calculation runs automatically for every order.
