Margins and cost basis
Several report columns — Margin %, Markup %, Gross profit / unit, Gross profit (stock), and Stock cost — depend on which cost you’re comparing a variant’s price against. Reports that show them let you choose the cost, and name it right in the column so you always know which number you’re looking at.
On this page
Section titled “On this page”- Choosing the cost basis
- What each column means
- A cost of zero
- Reading the numbers on a grouped row
Choosing the cost basis
Section titled “Choosing the cost basis”On reports where it applies (Products, Low stock, ABC analysis, Stock on hand), a Cost basis control sits in the toolbar with two options:
| Option | What it reads |
|---|---|
| Shopify cost | The cost per item stored on the Shopify variant — the Cost price value. |
| Supplier cost | The primary supplier’s mapped cost for the variant. A variant with no supplier link shows ”—”. |
Switching the basis rewrites every margin, markup, gross-profit, and stock-value number on screen. To make that unmissable, the affected column headers name the basis in use — for example Margin % (Supplier cost) — so the header and the numbers underneath it always agree, in the table, in an export, and on a scheduled report’s CSV.
What each column means
Section titled “What each column means”- Margin % —
(price − cost) ÷ price × 100 - Markup % —
(price − cost) ÷ cost × 100 - Gross profit / unit —
price − cost, per unit - Gross profit (stock) —
available quantity × (price − cost), for everything currently on hand - Stock cost —
available quantity × cost
Hover any of these cells to see the exact formula and the operands it used, unrounded.
A cost of zero
Section titled “A cost of zero”If a variant’s cost reads as zero — commonly because a cost wasn’t imported for it — the margin family treats that as free goods: a 100% margin, with the full retail price counted as profit. That’s mathematically correct given a zero cost, but it’s worth checking whether the zero is real or just a gap in your cost data before trusting the number.
Reading the numbers on a grouped row
Section titled “Reading the numbers on a grouped row”Group a report by a dimension (supplier, vendor, and so on) and the margin-family columns still show, but as a rollup of the rows in that group — an average for Margin %, Markup %, and Gross profit / unit, and a sum for Gross profit (stock) and Stock cost. Hover a grouped cell to see which of the two it is.
See also
Section titled “See also”- Editing prices in a report — changing the Price or Compare-at price a margin is calculated against.
- Reporting — grouping, filters, columns, and export.