A brand can finish Q4 with 30% more revenue and a loss, and not find out until the P&L lands in January. Adam Callinan’s team at Pentane described a flood of exactly those calls one January.
November is the month your revenue and your profit are most likely to move in opposite directions, because discounts, ad costs and shipping all rise at once while the dashboard you watch only shows sales. Adam Callinan, founder and CEO of Pentane, put it bluntly when he joined me on episode 449 of the podcast: “All the costs are hidden. The only costs that are not hidden is what’s being spent on ad budget, right?”
He then described what Pentane sees after the holidays. “We had a massive influx of companies come in in January because their Q4 did not work the way that they thought it was going to. And they didn’t know it.” In his telling, they found out when the P&L arrived on January 5th and asked how 30% more revenue had turned into a loss. Those founders saw strong sales all through November and December. The P&L told a different story weeks later, after the discounts were already given and the ad budgets already spent.
I told Adam on that same episode that I had seen this happen big time around BFCM. Brands would push hard, offer the discounts they felt they had to offer, and end the season losing money or, at best, breaking even. My view from those Shopify years hasn’t changed: the problem is rarely the sale itself. It is that nobody looked at net profit until the month was over.
That is the job a profit tracker does, and it is why I wanted to look at TrueProfit now rather than in January. If you start tracking before your BFCM traffic arrives, you can see on day two whether a 25% sitewide discount is making money after ads and shipping. If you wait, you find out with everyone else.
TrueProfit is a Shopify app that pulls your sales, ad spend, product costs, shipping costs and payment fees into one dashboard so you can see net profit by day, by product and by channel. It sits between Shopify’s built in reports, which stop at gross profit, and full attribution platforms, which cost several times more.
The app is built by FireApps JSC in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and has been on the Shopify App Store listing for TrueProfit since July 31, 2019. As of November 10, 2026 the listing shows a 4.9 rating from 925 reviews. On TrueProfit’s about page, founder Harry Chu says he built it after struggling to track profit in his own ecommerce business, and the company claims more than 70,000 installs since 2019. That install figure is TrueProfit’s own and I haven’t verified it.
In practice, TrueProfit replaces the spreadsheet a lot of stores keep on the side: the one where you paste in Meta spend, look up shipping invoices and subtract Shopify Payments fees by hand. It connects to the major ad platforms (Facebook, Google, TikTok, Microsoft, Pinterest, Snapchat and others), several print on demand and dropshipping suppliers, and shipping tools, then does that subtraction continuously. It also has a mobile app and a separate net profit tracker for TikTok Shop.
It does not replace your accounting software. It won’t reconcile your bank account or prepare tax filings, and you still need a bookkeeper or a tool like QuickBooks for that. Think of it as the daily decision number, not the books. If you are still setting up the basics, Fastlane’s guide to ecommerce accounting for Shopify stores walks through which numbers matter at each stage before you add a profit tool on top.
TrueProfit’s value comes from four capabilities: a net profit dashboard that subtracts every variable cost, product level profit, a monthly P&L, and an AI connector that lets you ask ChatGPT or Claude about your numbers. They don’t all sit on the same plan, which matters more than the feature list suggests.
A daily net profit number. Shopify’s own profit reports are built on the cost per item you’ve recorded; the order and market reports also count shipping costs, duties and import taxes your store pays, but none of them take out ad spend or payment processing fees. TrueProfit also subtracts ad spend synced from your ad accounts, shipping costs (set by weight or zone, or synced from a shipping app), transaction fees and any custom costs you add, such as software subscriptions. Fastlane’s complete guide to Shopify reports walks through the native reports and the costs they leave out. This dashboard is on every plan, including the $35 Basic plan.
Profit by product. Product Analytics ranks your catalog by net profit rather than revenue and breaks down each product’s costs. It is the feature that tells you your bestseller is the one losing money after shipping. It starts on the Advanced plan, not Basic.
A P&L you can read in the middle of the month. The P&L report gives you a profit and loss view for any date range, which is what lets you check November on November 28 instead of in January. It also starts on Advanced.
Your profit data inside ChatGPT or Claude. The TrueProfit MCP connector lets you ask an AI assistant questions such as why profit dropped last week, and it answers from your live TrueProfit data. The pricing page puts it on Enterprise only. Read the permissions when you connect it: TrueProfit’s setup guide notes that in Claude you can set its write and delete tools to “Always allow”, and I’d leave those on ask until you trust it.
All four depend on one input you have to get right yourself: product costs. Thomas Gleeson, co-founder of StoreHero, said on episode 466, while walking through the numbers a founder should know, “The next one is your cost of goods. This is the one we see everybody get wrong.” He counts more than the product in that figure: packing, shipping, transaction fees and 3PL costs all belong in it. TrueProfit can pull cost per item from Shopify, set costs by quantity and shipping zone, and take shipping and fees from their own sources, but if any of those inputs are stale, every profit figure downstream is wrong too.
The right TrueProfit plan depends on your busiest billing cycle as much as your average one, because every plan charges a fee for each order above its limit until a monthly cap. Here are the four plans as listed on TrueProfit’s pricing page as of November 2026, in US dollars. All come with a 14 day free trial, and there is no annual plan.
Now apply it to a real shape of business. Illustrative example, assuming a store that processes 500 orders in a normal billing cycle and 1,800 in the cycle that covers BFCM, using the published prices above:
On Basic, a normal month costs $35 plus 200 extra orders at $0.30, or $95. That is already more than Advanced’s flat $60, so Basic stops making sense above roughly 380 orders a month. In November, Basic hits its $300 cap for a $335 bill. On Advanced, a normal month is $60, and November adds 1,200 extra orders at $0.20 for a $300 bill. On Ultimate, November costs $100 plus 300 extra orders at $0.10, or $130.
So the cheapest year for this store is Advanced for eleven months and Ultimate for November: about $790, against roughly $960 for staying on Advanced all year and $1,230 for Ultimate all year. TrueProfit’s pricing FAQ says you can upgrade or downgrade at any time and pay only for the days left in the billing period. What the page doesn’t say is how the order count is handled after a mid-cycle switch, and Shopify app charges run on 30 day cycles rather than calendar months, so check where your cycle starts and ask support before you rely on this. Make the change before your first BFCM email goes out, not after.
The same arithmetic gives you the crossover points. Advanced and Ultimate cost the same at about 800 orders a month, and Ultimate and Enterprise meet at about 2,500. If your normal month sits between 800 and 2,500 orders, Ultimate is the plan TrueProfit marks as recommended for good reason. The caps change the picture at very high volume: Basic can never cost more than $335, while Enterprise can reach $1,200, so a store that only needs the core dashboard should check whether a capped lower plan is cheaper than moving up.
The other half of the decision is features, not orders. Marketing attribution and the MCP connector are Enterprise only. A 500 order store paying $200 a month to get attribution is spending about three times what it needs to on profit tracking. If attribution is the reason you’re shopping, compare the Enterprise plan against dedicated attribution tools, not against TrueProfit’s cheaper plans.
TrueProfit’s biggest weakness is that its bill rises with your order count, and merchants have been caught out by it after a strong month. In a December 2024 review on the one star reviews for TrueProfit, a German store said charges came in far above the subscription after a sales jump, with no warning. TrueProfit’s reply said the overage terms are shown at install and that it planned to add notifications about quota changes. Whatever alerts exist in your account today, the math in the last section is yours to do before the busy cycle starts, not after the charge.
Three more limitations are worth weighing before you install.
VAT handling is disputed. A July 2026 review from a Portuguese store said TrueProfit doesn’t track VAT. TrueProfit replied that VAT collected through Shopify is synced and kept out of net profit, and asked about the store’s setup. If you sell into the EU or UK with VAT that doesn’t flow through Shopify’s own tax settings, test your exact setup in the trial before committing.
Numbers you have to check. The negative reviews that do exist mostly describe wrong numbers. Some are setup problems on the merchant’s side. Others describe the app itself: fees calculated by formula rather than pulled from Shopify, refunds and substitutions miscounted, a P&L that didn’t update after a COGS edit, and, in one reviewer’s September 2026 update, handling fees showing as zero on orders that had them. TrueProfit has replied that several of these were fixed. With a 4.9 rating across 925 reviews, these are a small share, but they point at the same risk, so spot check one week’s numbers against your payouts and invoices before you make decisions on them. Fastlane’s breakdown of what Shopify fees actually cost you is a useful reference for that check.
One plan per store, and no free tier. Every store needs its own plan, though TrueProfit offers a discount above five stores. After the 14 day trial, the minimum is $35 a month.
If TrueProfit isn’t the fit, there are good options. Choose BeProfit instead if you process under 150 orders a month, because its free plan covers one store at that volume with a profit dashboard and order level profit. Choose Lifetimely instead if customer lifetime value and cohort retention matter more to you than ad level profit; it has a free plan with a daily P&L, and paid plans include unlimited users. Choose StoreHero instead if you run ads across several channels and want a single contribution margin target to manage toward; Fastlane’s StoreHero review covers who it suits. And if you are under about $250K a year with simple costs, Shopify’s free profit reports plus a monthly spreadsheet may be all you need for now.
That last point is the subtraction case, and I’d take it seriously. A profit tracker you don’t open every week is just another app on the bill. Install one when you are making weekly spend decisions that the number would change.
If you are a Shopify merchant spending on ads and you don’t know today’s net profit, start a TrueProfit trial or one of the alternatives this week, so you have at least a week of clean data before Black Friday. Use the trial to enter or sync your product costs, connect your ad accounts and shipping, and compare one week’s profit against your actual payouts.
If you are doing under 300 orders a month, focus on getting cost per item right in Shopify first. That one fix makes every tool more accurate, including Shopify’s free reports, though Shopify only counts profit on items that had a cost recorded when they sold, so start now rather than expecting it to fix past months. If you are at 500 to 1,500 orders, run the plan math above with your own November forecast and pick the plan for that month, then set a reminder to downgrade in January. If you are above 2,500 orders or running several stores, price Enterprise against an attribution platform and decide which single tool owns your profit number, rather than paying for two.
Whichever you choose, check net profit after your first big promotion day, not after the month ends. That one habit is the difference between adjusting a discount on November 29 and reading about it on January 5.
TrueProfit’s base subscription costs $35 to $200 USD a month as of November 2026, plus per order fees if you go over your plan’s limit. Basic is $35 for 300 orders, Advanced is $60 for 600, Ultimate is $100 for 1,500, and Enterprise is $200 for 3,500. Each plan charges a fee for every order above its limit, from $0.30 on Basic down to $0.07 on Enterprise, until it reaches a monthly cap of $300 to $1,000. Every plan includes a 14 day free trial, and there is no annual billing option. Because of the per order fees, a store that regularly goes over its plan’s limit often pays less by moving up a tier.
No, TrueProfit does not have a free plan for Shopify stores; it offers a 14 day free trial on every paid plan, after which the minimum is $35 a month. Its separate TikTok Shop net profit tracker has been offered free to early users, but that is a different product. If you need a free option for a small Shopify store, BeProfit’s free plan covers one store up to 150 orders a month, and Lifetimely has a free plan with a daily profit and loss view. Shopify’s own profit reports are also free, though they don’t subtract ad spend or payment fees.
Neither is better for every store; BeProfit wins for very small stores because of its free plan, and the rest comes down to your order volume, billing preference and the features you need. As of November 2026, TrueProfit’s Advanced plan is $60 a month for 600 orders and Ultimate is $100 for 1,500, billed monthly only. BeProfit’s free plan covers one store up to 150 orders a month, it offers annual billing on its paid plans, and its top plan covers unlimited orders and stores for $249 a month, which can suit multi store operators. BeProfit’s paid tiers have changed over time, so price both on your own peak month during the free trials, and remember that attribution sits on TrueProfit’s Enterprise plan.
If you go over your plan’s order limit, TrueProfit adds a fee for each extra order until it reaches that plan’s monthly surcharge cap, after which no further fees apply. The fees are $0.30 per order on Basic (capped at $300), $0.20 on Advanced (capped at $500), $0.10 on Ultimate (capped at $700) and $0.07 on Enterprise (capped at $1,000), as of November 2026. A store on Advanced that does 1,800 orders in its BFCM billing cycle would pay $300 for that cycle, while Ultimate would cost $130. You can change plans at any time, so check your forecast before a big sales event.
Yes, TrueProfit has an MCP connector that links your TrueProfit data to ChatGPT, Claude and OpenClaw, but it is only included on the $200 a month Enterprise plan as of November 2026. Once connected, you can ask questions such as how profit compares with last week, and the assistant answers from your live data instead of a pasted export. TrueProfit’s setup guide says you need an active TrueProfit account with the Admin or Viewer role, and the Editor role is not supported. In Claude, the connector’s tools include write and delete actions you can set to always allow, so review those permissions before you approve them.
