Cost Tracking for a Small Shopify Store: What to Log and How

Cost tracking means writing down what each sale really costs you: the product, shipping, fees, apps and ads. What is left after them is your margin. Most small stores know their revenue to the cent and their costs only roughly, so a month with record sales can still end with nothing left over.

You don't need accounting software to start. A spreadsheet and the Cost per item field in Shopify cover most of it.

The six costs to track

• Product cost (COGS). What you paid the supplier per unit, plus inbound freight and duties if you pay them. Update it every time the supplier changes the price.
• Shipping and packaging. What you pay the carrier, minus what the customer paid for shipping. With free shipping, the whole carrier charge is your cost.
• Payment fees. A percentage of the order plus a fixed amount per order. Your exact rate is in your Shopify admin.
• Apps and plan. Fixed monthly costs. Divide them by the month's orders to see what each order carries. Our Shopify cost breakdown lists what these usually run.
• Ads. The month's ad spend divided by the month's orders.
• Returns and discounts. Refunds, return shipping and discount codes. They come straight out of margin.

Use Shopify's Cost per item field

Each product variant in Shopify has a Cost per item field next to the price. Fill it in and Shopify shows the profit and margin for that variant on the product page. Depending on your plan, Shopify's reports can also show gross profit for products that have a cost entered.

The field covers product cost only. Shipping, fees, apps and ads stay outside it, so you still need the sheet for the full picture.

How to count margin per order

margin per order = order total
                 − product cost
                 − (shipping paid − shipping charged)
                 − payment fees
                 − (apps + plan) / orders this month
                 − ad spend / orders this month

An example: a $60 order with $22 product cost, $8 shipping and free shipping for the customer, a card fee of 2.9% plus 30¢, $60 a month in apps and plan, and $500 a month in ads, over 100 orders.

Run it for your three best sellers first. If one of them lands near zero, that product needs a new price, a cheaper supplier or less ad spend.

A cost tracking sheet you can copy

Use one row per month with these columns:

Fill it in once a month. After three months you can see which line is growing.

Your costs and your competitors' prices

Cost tracking tells you the lowest price you can sell at. Your competitors' prices tell you how high customers will still go. Your margin is the gap between the two, and both change over time.

StoreSentry doesn't track your costs. It watches the other side: your competitors' Shopify stores, every hour, with a digest by email or Telegram when their prices go up or down, a product sells out or restocks, or something new launches. When a rival raises prices, you may have room to pass on a supplier increase. When they cut, your sheet shows how far you can follow. Our guide on whether to match a competitor's price covers that decision.

Billing goes through your Shopify invoice. To look at a competitor's catalog first, the free Store Checker shows any public Shopify store's catalog size, price range, discounts and sold-out products.