The Shopify true-margin calculator: what's left after fees, refunds and shipping.

Shopify's "Total sales" number is gross revenue — not profit. To get true per-order margin you subtract payment processing (typically 1,9-2,9% + €0,30), Shopify subscription fees allocated per order, refunds and chargebacks, shipping cost (your cost, not what you charged), packaging, COGS, and a slice of fixed overhead. On most stores, the gap between "gross sales" and EBIT is 28-42% of the order total.

Why the Shopify dashboard lies

Shopify isn't lying. The dashboard is a sales dashboard, not a P&L. It reports the top of the funnel — orders placed, revenue booked, average order value. The bottom of the funnel — EBIT after every deduction — is a different report, and Shopify doesn't build it because the deduction stack varies by store: your payment processor, your shipping carrier, your VAT setup, your fulfilment model, your fixed overhead.

The owner has to build it. Or, more accurately, the owner has to build it once, codify the formula, and let a tool run it on every order. That's the calculator below.

The full deduction ladder

Eight deductions sit between an order total and EBIT:

After all eight, you allocate a slice of fixed overhead (rent on the studio, your salary, software not yet counted). What remains is EBIT per order.

Worked example: a €69,90 order on a Berlin candle store

Customer in Munich orders two candles at €34,95 each, ships to Germany, pays with card. The store charges €4,90 shipping. Order total at checkout: €74,80.

True EBIT margin: 11,3% of gross. Compare to the Shopify dashboard which would read this as a €74,80 sale at "100% margin on shipping, 78% margin on goods" — both wrong, in opposite directions.

Seven leak points most stores under-count

After auditing 80+ Shopify stores on nouz, the same seven lines come up under-counted every time:

1. Free shipping above a threshold. If you advertise "free shipping over €50" and your average order on that band is €52, you're absorbing the full shipping cost on a slim order. Track per-band margin.
2. App stack creep. A €19/month app feels small. Five of them is €1.140/year. Audit quarterly.
3. Returns processing. A return isn't just the refund — it's the inbound shipping label, the inspection time, the restocking, sometimes the discount on resale. Budget 1,5-2x the headline refund value.
4. Chargebacks. Rare but expensive: typical chargeback fee €15 + lost product + lost shipping. One chargeback wipes the margin on 8-12 orders.
5. Promotional discounts. A 15% discount code doesn't cost you 15% — it costs you 15% on top of fixed costs that don't shrink. See the true cost of a 15% discount code.
6. Inventory write-offs. Damaged stock, expired stock, that one batch with the wrong label. Reserve 1-3% of COGS.
7. Currency conversion. Selling in EUR but paying suppliers in USD or GBP? The FX spread eats 1-3% you never see on an invoice.

Automating the calculation

Building this ladder once is healthy. Running it manually on 280 orders/month is not. Three options:

• A spreadsheet that pulls the Shopify order export and the Stripe report monthly. Works for under 100 orders/month.
• A Shopify app that surfaces profit per order. Most cost €30-€90/month — add that to the app-stack line in your ladder.
• A daily P&L tool like nouz where you record each day's net revenue, COGS, variable costs and fixed-cost slice — and EBIT settles automatically. See how it works for e-commerce.

Whichever you pick, the goal is the same: see EBIT per order weekly, not gross sales daily. For the companion piece on the single biggest leak in e-commerce pricing, read how shipping costs quietly eat your e-commerce margin. For the Polish soap maker who ran exactly this exercise on her first 90 days, see Saltire Soap — Edinburgh.

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