How do I add my product costs in Cost Manager?
Set a default product cost, handling, shipping and payment fee, or enter costs per product, so your profit includes what each order costs you.
Open Cost Manager
Open Setup in the left menu and click Cost Manager. Any Add cost or est. link next to a number on the Dashboard or in the Ads Manager opens it too. Your settings are under the heading Cost Settings. A tour of the whole page is in What is Cost Manager and what can I do there?.
On the Basic plan, Cost Manager is locked. See Why is a page locked behind Upgrade to Pro?.
Set your default costs
Default costs are counted on every order, so you do not need a cost for each product to see your profit.
- Under Cost of Goods, click one of the four cards. A card shows Not set and Click to set up until you save it, and your value with Click to edit after that.
- Fill in the window that opens, as described in the table below.
- Click the save button. A message confirms that it is saved.
| Card | What to enter | Save button and message |
|---|---|---|
| Product Cost (% of product price) | The window Add Default Cost % has one field, Default cost percentage. It is used for every product and variant that has no cost of its own. | Save Percentage, then Successfully saved default cost percentage |
| Handling Fee (Per order, plus fees per item) | The window Add Default Handling Fee, or Edit Default Handling Fee once saved, has one field, Default handling fee per order. It is added once to every order. | Save Handling Fee, then Successfully saved default handling fee |
| Shipping Cost (Per order) | The window Shipping Cost has Shipping per order, what it costs you to ship one parcel, and Each extra item adds. Use 0 if a bigger parcel costs you the same. The Example: line shows how shipping adds up for a sample order with your extra item amount. | Save Shipping Cost, then Saved shipping cost |
| Processing Fee (% of order total) | The window Add Default Processing Fee %, or Edit Default Processing Fee % once saved, has one field, Default processing fee percentage, for example 2.9. | Save Percentage, then Successfully saved default processing fee percentage |
If you enter a product cost above 80% or a processing fee above 50%, a message asks whether you are sure.
Until all four cards are set, a Quick Setup Recommended banner reminds you to fill them in. It is hidden while your profit is worked out from your break-even ROAS.
Enter costs per product
The table under Search Products lists the products sold in your 100 most recent orders, with the SKU next to each name. Qty is how many of each were sold in those orders. Type in the Search by product name box to find a product by its name, its SKU or a variant name.
| Column | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Product Cost | What one item of the product costs you. |
| Handling Fee per Item | Added on top of your handling fee per order, for every item of this product sold. |
| Shipping per Item | Replaces your shipping per order. With several items in one order, the highest shipping cost counts once, plus your extra item amount for every other item. |
Hover over the info icon next to Handling Fee per Item or Shipping per Item to read the same explanation in Cost Manager.
- Click the cell. An empty cell reads Set cost, Set fee or Set shipping.
- Type the amount and press Enter, or click outside the cell.
- You see Saved Product Cost, Saved Handling Fee per Item or Saved Shipping per Item.
To remove a cost, click the small x at the right of the cell.
Variants:
- A product with variants has a plus sign next to its name. Click it to show the variants. A cost you set on a variant is used for that variant instead of the product's cost.
- A Product Cost in italics on a yellow background is not a cost you entered. It is an estimate worked out from your Product Cost percentage, or, on a product whose variants have costs of their own, the range of those costs.
- When a product has no cost of its own but some of its variants do, hover over its cell to see how many variants have a cost. A cost you enter in that cell is used for the variants without their own cost.
How your costs are counted
Click How are my costs calculated? below the cards to open How your costs are calculated, with a shipping example that uses your extra item amount. In short, every order gets:
- Product cost: the cost of each product or variant, times the quantity sold. Items without a cost of their own use your Product Cost percentage of their price.
- Handling: your handling fee once per order, plus the Handling Fee per Item for every item sold.
- Shipping: one order ships as one parcel. The order counts the highest shipping cost among its products once, plus your extra item amount for every other item. A product without its own Shipping per Item counts as your shipping per order. For example, a lamp with a shipping cost of $12 and two mugs at $3 each, with $1 per extra item, count as $12 + 2 × $1 = $14.
- Payment processing: your processing fee percentage of the full order total, including tax and the shipping your customer paid.
The same window also explains break-even ROAS and custom costs. See How do I set my break-even ROAS and use it instead of product costs? and How do I add monthly costs like apps, rent or payment fees?.
When past orders are updated
Each new order gets the costs that are set when it comes in. When you change a default cost or a product cost, your recent orders are updated too:
- About 5 seconds after your last change, a line under Cost Settings shows Checking orders for cost updates...
- While it works, the line counts the orders it has checked and updated.
- When it is done, you see for example Updated costs on 120 of 450 orders., or a message that the costs were already up to date.
Only orders from the last 90 days are updated. Older orders keep the costs they had.
Warning: Keep Cost Manager open until the final message. Leaving the page stops the update, and the orders it did not reach keep their old costs until your next change in Cost Manager starts a new one.
If the update fails, a red message shows what went wrong. The same update also runs after you import costs. See How do I import product costs from Shopify or a spreadsheet?.
Good to know
- Costs apply to the whole store. Anyone on the store who can open Cost Manager can change them.
- Enter every amount in your store currency. See Which currency and time zone do my numbers use?.
- On WooCommerce stores, items sold for 0, such as free gifts or bundle parts, add no product cost, no handling per item and no shipping.
- You cannot delete a default cost once it is saved. The handling fee and the shipping cost can be set to 0, but the Product Cost and Processing Fee percentages cannot.
- Shipping cannot be set per country or per carrier.
- There is no button to rerun the order update by hand.
- Products that are not in your 100 most recent orders are not in the table. To add costs for more products at once, import them as described in How do I import product costs from Shopify or a spreadsheet?.
- Whether your profit numbers use these costs or your break-even ROAS is explained in How do I set my break-even ROAS and use it instead of product costs?.