Shopify Profit Calculator
Shopify takes no commission, which makes it easy to assume the margins are clean. They are not — the subscription, the gateway, the apps and the ad spend all land on the same order. This puts them together.
| Line item | Per order |
|---|---|
| Average order value | — |
| Payment processing | — |
| Third-party gateway fee | — |
| Product cost | — |
| Shipping you pay | — |
| Plan subscription | — |
| App subscriptions | — |
| Advertising | — |
| Net profit per order | — |
The four costs that quietly kill Shopify margins
Shopify's pitch is that there is no commission, and that is true. What people miss is that the absence of a commission means the platform charge moves from per sale to per month and per app — which changes what scale does to your margin.
| Cost | Behaviour | Typical size |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Fixed monthly | $39–399 |
| Apps | Fixed monthly, and accumulates | $30–300 |
| Payment processing | Per sale, ~2.4–2.9% + 30¢ | 2–3% of revenue |
| Advertising | Per sale, highly variable | 15–35% of revenue |
The accumulation problem is real: a store with 12 apps at $10–25 each is carrying $150–300 a month before selling anything. At 40 orders a month that is $4–7 of overhead per order. At 400 orders it is $0.40. This is why Shopify only makes sense once volume exists — a 2026 store with 20 orders a month pays roughly the same platform cost per order as Etsy charges in commission, without Etsy's traffic.
The app stack audit
Every Shopify store above $5k a month should be able to answer which apps earn their fee. The usual finding is 3–4 apps producing nothing and one or two that could be replaced by a native feature shipped since installation. Removing $80/month of dead apps at 100 orders is $0.80 back per order — small, but it compounds, and unlike price increases it costs no customers.
Reading your result
15–25% net after realistic advertising is the healthy band for direct-to-consumer. Above 30% usually means either the ad spend assumption is too low or the product is priced below what the market would bear. Below 10% and the store is running on borrowed time — one CPM spike in Q4 turns the whole month negative.
The number worth watching more than margin percentage is contribution margin after ads. That is what tells you whether you can afford to scale spend. A store at 12% net margin with $900 of ad spend can profitably double that spend if the marginal order still clears its variable costs — which is why this calculator splits fixed (plan, apps) from variable (processing, product, shipping) costs.
Frequently asked questions
Does Shopify charge a commission on sales?
No. Shopify charges a monthly subscription and, if you use a third-party payment gateway instead of Shopify Payments, an additional fee of 0.5–2% depending on plan.
Why does the third-party gateway fee exist?
Shopify gives a discount on processing when you use its own gateway. Choosing Stripe or PayPal instead means Shopify charges a penalty percentage to recover the difference. At $105/month and 1%, that is a real cost on a $10k month.
Should I include ad spend in per-order profit?
Yes if you want the truth. Divide monthly ad spend by monthly orders and enter it as the per-order figure. Many stores are profitable before advertising and unprofitable after, and only this calculation shows it.
Are these Shopify prices current?
They reflect published plan pricing at the time of the last review shown below. Shopify changes pricing and adds annual-billing discounts, so confirm on Shopify's pricing page before modelling.
Last reviewed: October 2026. Plan prices exclude annual-billing discounts and Shopify Plus. Payment rates shown are US rates; other regions differ.