Know what you actually kept on every order.

Know what you actually kept on every order.

Herd Margin Guard works out true contribution margin on every Shopify order, after product cost, real shipping, payment fees and returns. Order by order, product by product, discount code by discount code.

Coming soon. The app is in final testing ahead of its Shopify App Store listing. Join the early-access list and take 30% off.

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Shopify tells you what you sold. Margin Guard tells you what you kept — order by order, after product cost, real shipping, payment fees and returns.

What you sold against what you kept
Your P&L is a monthly average of a daily disaster

Your P&L is a monthly average of a daily disaster

A blended margin tells you the business works. It cannot tell you which orders, products, discount codes and shipping methods are quietly undoing it.

The discount that cost you money

The discount that cost you money

A 20% code on a heavy, low-margin product with free shipping is often a net loss. Nothing in Shopify tells you which codes do this, or how often.

The shipping you under-charged

The shipping you under-charged

You charged £4.95. The carrier billed £8.60. Once, that is bad luck. Repeated across a zone or a method, it is a structural leak.

The product that is not what you think

The product that is not what you think

The bestseller by revenue is frequently not the bestseller by profit. Ranking your catalogue by revenue actively misleads you.

Figures are illustrative, in GBP.

  1. Revenue, net of tax and net of discounts

    Discounts are read from the order's own discount allocations, so order-level discounts and code discounts are both counted — not just the line's discounted total. Getting this wrong is the most common way a margin app overstates revenue.

  2. Product cost

    Taken from Shopify's own inventory unit cost, with an optional landed-cost uplift for duty and freight-in.

  3. Real shipping cost

    Mapped per shipping method: flat, weight-banded or per-item. Shown against what the customer actually paid, as over- or under-recovery. A mapped cost, not an estimate.

  4. Payment fees

    Mapped per gateway, with a Shopify Payments rate estimator.

  5. Fulfilment

    Packaging per order and per item, 3PL per order and per item, and gift wrap.

  6. Marketplace commission and FX

    Applied as a percentage on the orders where they apply.

  7. Returns

    A per-return-event cost and a per-item handling cost.

  8. Margin at sale, then margin after refunds

    Margin at sale is the figure at the moment of sale. Margin after refunds restates it, because a refund takes the revenue back but leaves the shipping, the fee and the pick-pack already spent. The dashboard carries margin lost to refunds as its own figure. Most tools show only the first.

  9. A stated allocation basis

    Order-level costs are split across lines by revenue share or by weight share, and the app tells you which basis it used. Weight share is the honest basis for shipping; revenue share is the honest basis for fees. An allocation is never presented as a measured cost.

Four reports, four decisions

Each report exists to drive one decision, not to be admired.

Orders

Orders

Every paid order with net margin in £ and %, and a margin health status. Decides: which orders to investigate, and which customers are unprofitable.

Products

Products

Margin by product, grouped by vendor or product type. Decides: what to reprice, rebundle or drop.

Discounts

Discounts

Margin by discount code. Decides: which promotions to cap or kill.

Shipping

Shipping

Margin by shipping method and by destination country, with over- and under-recovery. Decides: where to reprice shipping or change carrier.

Margin Guard launches soon, get access to 30% off for the first 12 months by signing up today.

Margin Guard metafields on a Shopify order

It writes the answer onto the order

Margin Guard does not just report. It puts the figure where you already work.

Order metafields — margin at sale in £ and %, margin after refunds in £ and %, margin health, when it was last calculated and when refunds were last recalculated. Pinned, so they appear on the order page in your Shopify admin.

Order tags — margin-critical and margin-warning, so you can filter your native Shopify order list by margin health. There is also margin-not-applicable, because a gift-card sale is money held, not a sale.

A Shopify Flow trigger — fires when an order's margin is computed, so you can Slack a loss-making order, tag a customer or hold a fulfilment.

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Accurate in an afternoon, not instantly

Accurate in an afternoon, not instantly

A margin number is only as good as the cost data behind it, and mapping that data is real work. So the app tells you how much to trust it while you do.

Data-quality score
1.

Data-quality score

The percentage of orders with complete cost data, on the dashboard where you cannot miss it.

Missing cost detection
2.

Missing cost detection

Flags products with no unit cost before they skew the figures.

Unmapped methods and gateways
3.

Unmapped methods and gateways

Surfaced as explicit setup gaps, so an under-configured shop knows its margin is provisional instead of quietly believing a wrong number.

Catalog audit
4.

Catalog audit

A recurring product-health check, so cost data does not rot as the catalogue changes.

A margin app that cannot tell you how much to trust it is asking you to take its word for it.

30% off for early sign-ups

Margin Guard is in final testing ahead of its Shopify App Store listing. Join the early-access list, and we will tell you the moment it is live.

Join the early-access list
Pricing

Pricing

Billed monthly in USD. Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial. These are the standard rates — early sign-ups take 30% off.

Starter — $49/month

Starter — $49/month

Up to 750 orders a month. 60 days of order history. All four reports, order metafields and order tags.

Grow — $119/month

Grow — $119/month

Up to 3,000 orders a month. Full order history. Shopify Flow trigger and the summary email.

Plus — $299/month

Plus — $299/month

Up to 15,000 orders a month. Full order history. Priority support.

Monthly billing only; there is no annual plan. Margin is computed in your shop's own currency. Higher volumes are handled case by case — ask us.

Questions we get asked

From Shopify's own inventory unit cost, with an optional landed-cost uplift for duty and freight-in. If a product has no unit cost the app flags it rather than guessing, and your data-quality score drops until you fill it in.

You map each shipping method once, as flat, weight-banded or per-item. The app compares that to what the customer actually paid and reports the difference as over- or under-recovery. Any method you have not mapped is shown as a setup gap.

No, and that is deliberate. We do not touch ad spend. Your fulfilment economics are hard enough to see, and that is the half your P&L hides. To model unit economics including media spend and target ROAS, use the free margin calculator instead.

You get both figures. Margin at sale is the number at the moment of sale. Margin after refunds restates it, because a refund returns the revenue but not the shipping, the payment fee or the pick-pack. The dashboard reports margin lost to refunds separately.

Order metafields and order tags, on orders. Nothing else. No products, prices, inventory or customers are touched.

Starter covers 60 days of order history; Grow and Plus cover your full history. During a free trial every plan shows 15 days, and your full history unlocks when the plan starts.

Margin is computed when the order is paid, on the Shopify orders/paid webhook. It is event-driven and fast, rather than a nightly batch.

The app is built and in final testing. The Shopify App Store listing has not been submitted yet. Join the early-access list and you will hear first, with 30% off.

Get early access, and 30% off

Margin Guard is in final testing. Leave your details and we will tell you the moment it is live on the Shopify App Store. Early sign-ups take 30% off.

Herd Margin Guard

Not ready to install? Model your unit economics first.

The free margin calculator answers a different question: does the maths work at all, once media spend and target ROAS are in it. Five minutes, no install.

Open the free calculator

Coming soon to the Shopify App Store. 14-day free trial. Built by Herd.