Profit Margin Calculator for Shopify

Unlike Amazon, Shopify takes no referral fee. You pay a payment fee that depends on what you pick above: the store country (Shopify Payments is ~2.9% + $0.30 in the US but ~1.5% in the EU), the Shopify plan (Basic → Advanced drops the US rate from 2.9% to 2.5%), and the payment method. Using Stripe or PayPal also triggers Shopify's third-party surcharge (2.0% on Basic, 0.6% on Advanced) on top of the gateway's own rate.

Note: Shopify Payments is not available in mainland China. Cross-border sellers from mainland China usually register a Hong Kong entity to use Shopify Payments — select Hong Kong as the store country above to apply the official Hong Kong rates (Basic 3.3% + HK$2.35).

Beyond the fee, the real margin is eaten by returns (a rate %, return shipping and the share of COGS you can't resell), discounts, chargebacks (a rate % plus a per-incident fee), app-fee amortization (your monthly apps spread across orders) and FX conversion on international sales. The fulfilment mode (self / 3PL / dropship) relabels and resets the handling cost, and a monthly profit projection scales net/unit by your order volume.

Worked example

Defaults shown: United States · Basic · Shopify Payments · Self-fulfil. Price $29.99, COGS $7.50, shipping $3.50, handling / fulfilment $4.75, landed $0, PPC $2.00, returns 3% (100% restock loss, $3.50 return ship), chargeback 0.5% ($15 fee), payment fee 2.9% + $0.30 — these are the exact inputs the calculator loads with:

No referral fee means a higher headline margin than Amazon — but only if your shipping, handling and returns are real, not zero. Switch the country, plan, payment method or fulfilment mode above and watch the fee and net move with it.