How to calculate ecommerce profit

Before you start

• An Analify account with access to your Brand’s integrations and financial information.
• The Shopify store, advertising accounts and Bosta account you want included.
• Product costs for your variants, entered in Analify or available to sync from Shopify, plus business cost context in your Business Brain.
• A specific date range to use when checking every input.

Steps

1. Step 1

   Connect the sources behind the calculation

   Open Settings → Integrations and connect Shopify, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads and Bosta as applicable. Shopify supplies sales and order data; connected advertising platforms supply ad spend; Bosta supplies shipping information and courier return outcomes. Analify only reads connected sources within your permissions. A disconnected source does not mean its costs are zero.

2. Step 2

   Enter product costs and check coverage

   In Finance, open Product costs to enter costs or sync available Shopify catalog costs. COGS is the product-cost line, based on your cost records rather than the selling price. Check variants with missing costs and their impact. Your Business Brain can also hold cost facts and business context. Through the unified MCP connection, analify_get_cogs_coverage checks how much of the catalog has a cost on file.

3. Step 3

   Check revenue and actual ad spend

   Choose your date range and inspect Shopify revenue alongside spend reported by each connected advertising platform. Revenue is the store-sales input, not the sum of sales credited by Meta and TikTok. Ad Spend is reported advertising spend, not account top-ups or card payments. Finance keeps Meta payments versus spend distinguishable. Check the revenue calculation details before assuming how discounts, taxes or refunds are handled.

4. Step 4

   Verify shipping and returns separately

   Shipping is the delivery-cost line; Returns is the return-cost deduction. Inspect available Bosta shipping and return inputs and check that the same cost has not been counted twice. Dashboards separates store returns from courier RTO: a return happens after delivery, while RTO never reaches completed delivery and can still incur shipping costs. The documented formula does not specify a detailed refund, return-fee or recovered-stock allocation rule. Ask the Agent to show the inputs used instead of assuming one. See RTO: /glossary/rto.

5. Step 5

   Resolve missing inputs before judging profit

   Open the calculation details and review cost coverage, source availability and the dates each metric actually covers. Finance flags missing product costs; Dashboards shows coverage warnings and can hide profit-dependent measures when inputs are incomplete. The Analify Agent shows missing evidence and holds back premature scale-or-cut advice. Enter or correct known costs rather than treating gaps as free products or free shipping. You can record or import other expenses in Finance, but they are separate from the five-line Blended Profit definition. Entries added by the Agent or connected AI do not enter Finance totals until you approve them.

6. Step 6

   Recalculate the five lines yourself

   Open Finance for detailed Profit and Product P&L, then ask the Analify Agent to show each input, its source, coverage and subtraction. Illustrative example in USD, with complete inputs for one period: Revenue $10,000 − Ad Spend $2,500 − Shipping $800 − COGS $4,000 − Returns $700 = $2,000 Blended Profit. These are sample numbers, not an Analify customer result. The remaining $2,000 is before fixed costs. Compare your calculation with the displayed result and investigate any difference. Formula reference: /glossary/blended-profit.

7. Step 7

   Check courier cash separately

   For cash-on-delivery orders, use Finance’s COD analysis and Cash collection to check collected, pending and overdue cash. A sale and a profit result do not establish that the courier has remitted the money. COD reconciliation matches delivered COD orders to cash collected and paid out; expected settlements remain separate from money received. See COD reconciliation: /glossary/cod-reconciliation.

Try these questions

• “Show Blended Profit for last month. List revenue, ad spend, shipping, COGS and returns with each source, date coverage and missing input.”
• “Which products and variants have missing costs, and how does that affect the profit result?”
• “Show the shipping and returns inputs used. Is any refund or courier fee counted twice?”
• “Recalculate the five-line Blended Profit formula and explain any difference from the Finance result.”
• “For the same period, show profit before ads divided by ad spend, and keep outstanding COD cash separate.”

Good to know

• Blended Profit excludes fixed costs such as salaries, rent and software. Finance can also track other recorded expenses; those broader totals are not automatically the same as Blended Profit.
• The five-line formula is fixed. Check your account’s calculation details to see how revenue adjustments, return costs and currency conversion are handled rather than assuming the treatment.
• Results depend on available connected data, entered or synced product costs, source freshness and period coverage. A coverage warning means the result needs checking; missing is not zero.
• Blended Profit combines channels. It does not prove which campaign caused a sale or resolve attribution disagreements.
• Reading data and calculating metrics do not change your business. Supported changes prepared by the Analify Agent in the app require your approval.