Shopify Orders Net Profit Analytics by Variant

Orders Net Profit estimates the profit a product variant earned by subtracting the variant’s cost from its net sales value, for the quantity sold after returns.

How Shopify Orders Net Profit is calculated

Orders Net Profit = Net sales value - (Current variant cost × Quantity sold)

Shopify does not store the cost per item as it stood on the day of the order, so Mixtable uses the variant’s current cost. That makes this an estimate, and variants with no cost set cannot produce a normal result.

Why your bestsellers are not always your best products

Sales rankings reward whatever moves the most money, and that is not the same as whatever makes you the most. Plenty of stores discover that a mid-table product with a strong margin contributes more to the bottom line than the discounted hero product at the top of the list.

Orders Net Profit puts that comparison in front of you. Use it to:

Rank variants by what they contribute, not by what they gross
Decide which products deserve ad spend, homepage space, and stock
Catch variants that sell well but earn almost nothing after discounting
Sanity check a promotion before you repeat it

This is a product-variant metric. Add it to a Products (with variants) worksheet when you want profit beside SKU, price, cost, inventory, and other Shopify variant fields.

Before you rely on the numbers

The calculation depends on Shopify’s Cost Per Item value, so it is only as good as the cost data in your store.

Variants without a cost do not produce a profit value
Mixtable uses the variant’s current cost, because Shopify does not provide the historical cost that applied when each order was placed
Updating Cost Per Item therefore changes profit figures for earlier orders too

Orders Net Profit is a merchandise-level estimate. It does not subtract shipping expenses, payment fees, marketing costs, taxes, duties, or other operating expenses, so treat it as a way to compare products against each other rather than as your true bottom line.

Add Orders Net Profit to a variant worksheet

Open a Products (with variants) worksheet
Click ＋ Shopify data in the header row of an empty column, or choose Column > Add Shopify data… from the menu bar. The field picker opens
Click Sales & analytics in the list of sections on the left, or type the metric's name in the search box
Click Orders Net Profit. The metric's settings open with it already chosen under Which metric?
Under Over what time period?, choose All time, Fixed dates, Rolling period, Calendar year, or Calendar month
Under Limit which orders count, add any optional filters supported by the metric
Click Save Column

Keep Cost Per Item, Net Sales, Net Quantity Sold, and inventory visible beside the result. When one variant out-earns another, those columns show you whether the reason was price, cost, volume, or returns.

Start with the Variant margin & inventory report

For a broader profitability view, click the + at the end of the worksheet tabs, select Reporting worksheet, and click Continue. Then select Variant margin & inventory under Shopify data worksheet with analytics columns, click Continue, and click Create Worksheet. That ready-made report combines current price, cost, and inventory with:

Amount of Cost of Goods Sold
Gross Profit
% Gross Margin
Net Sales
Net Quantity Sold

Margin and profit answer different questions, so it helps to read them together. A high-margin variant that barely sells may contribute less than a lower-margin variant that sells constantly. You can add an Orders Net Profit column to that worksheet if you want the per-variant total alongside the margin percentage.

Pivot Table and Time Series availability

Orders Net Profit is available as an analytics column on Products (with variants) worksheets. Like the other profit measures, Mixtable calculates it per variant. The Pivot Table builder lists Gross Profit, % Gross Margin, and Amount of Cost of Goods Sold under Profit, but the rows a breakdown creates, such as one row per vendor, category, or Market, show N/A for them. The Time Series builder has no profit measures.

To compare profit across vendors, add a Vendor column beside your profit columns on a Products (with variants) worksheet (click ＋ Shopify data, then click Vendor in the field picker’s Organization section and click Save Column), then sort or filter by it. See Shopify profit, gross margin, and COGS analytics for the other profit metrics.