Profit Dashboard
Costs and margins
Do this before you trust anything else
Break-even ROAS is calculated from these fields. Break-even ROAS decides which campaigns look profitable. Which campaigns look profitable decides what you scale. A transaction fee that is too low makes losing campaigns look like winners.
Where it lives
Profit Dashboard → Cost settings. Admins and owners only — these numbers change the verdict on the whole account, so a viewer can read the dashboard but not move the bar it is judged against.
Saving takes effect immediately. Every figure on every screen is recalculated the moment you press Save.
First: the number that is not on this page
The biggest cost in your business — what the goods cost you — is not set in Shopdeck. It is read from Shopify’s own Cost per item field, per product variant.
Open a product in Shopify
Shopify admin → Products → pick one → scroll to Pricing.
Fill in Cost per item
Put in what you actually pay, all in — the product, the shipping to you, and any customs. One number. Do not add anything to it in Shopdeck afterwards; Shopdeck takes it as final.
Repeat for every variant that sells
Each size and colour has its own field. Shopify lets you edit them in bulk, which is much faster than one at a time.
Run a full sync in Shopdeck
Full sync at the top right of any Profit screen. Cost prices only come in on a full sync, not on a quick refresh.
A product with no cost price has a cost of zero
Shopdeck does not guess. A missing cost price is treated as free goods, so that product shows a perfect margin and drags your break-even ROAS down with it. If your margins look impossibly good, this is almost always why.
The seven fields
| Field in Shopdeck | What goes in it, and where to find it |
|---|---|
| Transaction fee (%) | The percentage your payment provider keeps of every order. Look it up in your provider’s own statement rather than guessing. The default of 1.9 is Shopify Payments in Belgium. |
| Transaction fee (fixed) | The flat amount per transaction on top of the percentage. Default 0.25. |
| Return rate (assumption) | What you plan forward with, as a percentage. This one does not enter any profit calculation — it is the benchmark your measured return rate is compared against, so Shopdeck can flag a product or a country that is drifting. |
| Cost per return | What one return costs you in return shipping and handling. This does enter the calculation, and it is zero by default, which understates your costs. Fill it in. |
| Overhead per month | Your fixed monthly costs: software, salaries, rent, whatever you carry regardless of sales. Spread pro rata across whatever period you are looking at. It affects net profit but deliberately not break-even ROAS — overhead does not change whether the next ad euro pays for itself. |
| Shipping discount, second item | Two items in one box do not cost two shipments. This amount is taken off the cost of goods when an order has a second item. Default 3. |
| Shipping discount, third item | The same from the third item onward. Default 4.50. |
There is also a Reporting currency at the top of the page. That is the currency your figures are measured in and should match what your shop reports in. The picker in the page header only converts for reading.
Payout delay is not here
How long Shopify takes to pay you out is read from your own payout history rather than typed in, because your real schedule beats an assumption about it. The Cash flow screen shows the delay it worked out and the payouts it worked it out from.
Checking that your numbers are sane
- Break-even ROAS between about 1.3 and 2.5 is normal for most shops. Below 1.2 means your margin looks suspiciously fat — usually missing cost prices. Above 3.5 means your margin is very thin, which may be true or may mean the fee is set too high.
- Contribution margin should be recognisable to you. If it is far from what you believe you make, one of these seven numbers is wrong.
- Compare the measured return rate to your assumption on Overview. If they are wildly apart, your planning number is stale.
When it looks wrong
Margins look far too good
Why: Cost prices are missing in Shopify for some or all products.
Fix: Fill in Cost per item in Shopify, then run a Full sync. Check the product table on Overview afterwards — a product with a 100% margin is a product with no cost price.
Net profit is much lower than you expected
Why: Overhead is set high, or it is being spread across a short period.
Fix: Remember it is divided by 30 and multiplied by the days in view. On a one-day range you are seeing one day’s worth. Look at contribution margin instead if you want the picture without overhead.
You cleared a field and it saved as zero
Why: An empty box is read as zero rather than as “not set”. For the transaction fee that quietly drops your break-even ROAS.
Fix: Type the real number rather than leaving a field empty. Never leave the fee fields blank.
Next
With the costs right, The Profit Dashboard is finally telling you the truth. If something still looks off, Health and syncing tells you whether the data itself arrived.