Shopify profit calculator: what you actually keep from every order
Find out how much profit you really make per Shopify order. Put in what the customer pays and what the order costs you — product, shipping, payment fees, returns and ads — and see what you keep, where every dollar goes, and your break-even ad cost: the most you can spend on ads before an order starts losing money.
Your order numbers
Pre-filled with a typical example order for your market — change any number and the result updates instantly.
Where $48.00 goes
- Product cost
- Shipping & packing
- Payment fees
- Returns (expected cost)
- Ads
- You keep
Your margin is made — or lost — in the store itself.
Ads are your biggest cost after the product itself: $12.00 of every order.
Slow pages, a leaky checkout and weak product pages quietly raise your ad cost and return rate — the two numbers that decide whether an order profits. ScaleTrio builds and rebuilds Shopify stores designed to protect exactly this margin. Get a free audit of your store and we'll show you where your per-order profit is leaking.
Market vs ScaleTrio: the same store, side by side
Same store, two very different bills. The market column is what a professional Shopify store build typically costs in the US. The ScaleTrio column is our fixed package pricing: one public number, a free design preview before you pay anything, and 50/50 milestone payments — half after you approve the design preview, half when your store goes live.
| Package | Typical US market | ScaleTrio fixed price |
|---|---|---|
| Starter — complete store launch, 10 products | $1,500 – $5,000 | $999 |
| Business — 30 products, Meta Pixel + launch ads setup | $5,000 – $25,000 | $1,999 |
| Scale — 50+ products, CRO pass + email flows | $5,000 – $25,000 | $3,999 |
Market figures: a professional Shopify store build typically runs about $5,000–$25,000 with a US agency and about $1,500–$5,000 with an experienced freelancer. ScaleTrio prices are one-time fixed package prices: free design preview first, then 50% after you approve the preview and 50% when your store goes live. Nothing before that.
Typical US agency or freelancer
- How you're chargedHourly billing or a project quote is the norm, so the final total depends on how long the build runs and what gets added along the way.
- Before you payA deposit up front is standard — committed from a proposal and mockups, before a working version of your store exists.
- DesignUsually a premium theme or a mockup-led process; design revisions are often counted, and extra rounds billed.
- ProductsProduct uploads and copywriting are frequently priced per product — or left for you to write and load yourself.
- Payments & setupCheckout, shipping zones, taxes and policies may be inside the quote — or scoped as extras. It depends on what you sign.
- Tracking & adsPixel installation and ad account setup are typically add-ons, not part of the base build.
- After launchSupport usually means an ongoing retainer, or fixes billed by the hour.
- TimelineAgency builds commonly queue behind other clients — several weeks from kickoff to launch is typical.
ScaleTrio
- How you're chargedOne fixed public price for the whole build — no hourly billing, and the number never changes mid-project.
- Before you pay$0 upfront. We design your store's homepage first, free — 50% is due only after you approve the preview, and the final 50% when the store goes live.
- DesignCustom theme design matched to your brand — logo, colors, fonts, homepage sections — mobile-first, in every package.
- ProductsProducts uploaded with rewritten titles and descriptions, not copy-paste: 10 in Starter, 30 in Business, 50+ in Scale.
- Payments & setupShopify Payments, PayPal and express checkout configured and tested with a real test order; shipping zones, tax settings and store policies set up.
- Tracking & adsBusiness and Scale include Meta Pixel installed and tested, plus ad account and launch ads setup.
- After launchEvery build hands over with a walkthrough video of your store; Business and Scale include the 10-day first-sale launch plan, and Scale adds 30 days of post-launch support.
- TimelineLive in 10 days, design to launch — with daily updates on WhatsApp while we build.
The three leaks this calculator exposes
Shopify's own margin calculator only asks for cost and markup — it skips the costs that actually decide whether an order makes money. These are the three:
Fees you never see itemised
Payment processing comes off every single order before you see a cent — 2.9% + 30¢ on Shopify Payments in the US, 2% + 25p in the UK, and different rates again in Canada and Australia (the calculator loads your market's default). On a $48 order that's $1.69 — small per order, thousands per month at volume.
Returns eat the product twice
A returned order costs you the return label and usually the product itself. At a 12% return rate, that's an expected $2.46 gone from every order — before ads even enter the picture.
Ads priced by hope, not math
Your break-even ad cost is a hard ceiling, not a target. Spend above it and every "successful" campaign loses money. Below it, you know exactly how hard you can push.
How much profit should you make per order?
There's no universal dollar figure — it depends on your price — but the test is simple: after product, shipping, payment fees, expected returns and ads, a healthy order should still leave you 15–25% of what the customer paid. On the example order above — $48 of revenue — that's roughly $7–$12 kept per order, and the calculator's $9.35 sits right in that band.
Keeping less than 10% per order only looks fine until one cost moves: ad prices rise, a return spike hits, or a carrier puts its rates up. And the fastest way to lift profit per order is rarely a cheaper product — it's a higher conversion rate (the same ad spend produces more orders), a lower return rate (clearer product pages, honest sizing and photos), and shipping that isn't silently eating the margin. That's exactly what the waterfall above shows you, line by line.
What is a good profit margin for Shopify?
Two different margins get confused. Gross margin — price minus product cost — is the one Shopify's own guidance talks about when it says most retail businesses aim for 50% or higher. Net profit margin per order is stricter: what's left after shipping, payment fees, returns and ads as well. For ad-driven Shopify stores, a good net margin is 15–25% per order; above 25% is excellent; under 10% is fragile; and negative means every sale costs you money even while revenue grows.
That's why this calculator works per order instead of per month: a store can post record revenue and still lose money on every single order it ships. Run your own numbers above — if the per-order figure is healthy, the monthly one takes care of itself.
How the math works
No black box. Every number above comes from these formulas — the same ones we'd use auditing your store:
Returns are counted at their expected cost per order: the refunded sale itself is excluded, but the sunk costs (the product and the return label) are charged against every order at your return rate. Estimates only — your real numbers depend on your plan, negotiated rates and product mix.
Doing this by hand every month is the slow way to run a store. ScaleTrio's Shopify store development service builds stores around this exact math — product pages that convert, a checkout that doesn't leak, and shipping and payment fees set up properly from day one — so more of every order stays yours.
Break-even ROAS and ad cost explained
Your break-even ad cost is a dollar ceiling: the most you can pay to acquire one order before that order loses money. Break-even ROAS is the same ceiling expressed the way ad platforms report it — revenue per order divided by break-even ad cost. On the example order: $48.00 ÷ $21.35 gives a break-even ROAS of about 2.25. Run your campaigns below that ROAS and they lose money no matter how good the dashboard looks; above it, every order contributes profit.
Use it as a hard rule in your ad account: set your target ROAS at or above break-even, and when performance dips under it, fix the store — product page, offer, checkout — before blaming the ads. A store that converts better raises your break-even ceiling, because the same revenue carries more profit per order.
Common questions
Is this calculator really free?
Yes — no sign-up, no email, no trial. It runs entirely in this page; nothing you type is sent anywhere or stored. We make money when store owners ask us to build or rebuild their store, not from this tool.
What is a good profit margin for Shopify?
Shopify's own guidance notes most retail businesses aim for a 50% or higher gross margin — but that's before ads and returns. After every cost in this calculator, keeping 15–25% of each order is a solid, sustainable position for most ad-driven stores. Below 10%, one bad week of ad costs wipes out the month.
What is "break-even ad cost" and why does it matter?
It's the maximum you can spend acquiring one order before that order loses money. If your break-even is $21.35 and your ads cost $25 per order, growth is literally costing you money on every sale — the fix is a better-converting store, a higher price, or cheaper acquisition, in that order of reliability.
My margin is negative. What now?
Check the waterfall: whichever bar is fattest is your first fix. Ads too high usually means the store converts poorly, not that the ads are bad. Returns too high usually means product pages that oversell. Both are store problems — and both are what a store audit looks at first.