The Shopify dashboard is an operations screen, not an analytics product, and its plan structure says so. The Analytics page in your store admin gives you metric cards for sessions, conversion rate and average order value, but on Basic, $39 a month billed monthly or $29 billed annually, you do not get sales, customer, order, inventory or profit reports at all. Those arrive on Grow and Advanced, at $105 and $399 monthly, or $79 and $299 annually. And some questions, expiry risk in particular, Shopify does not answer on any plan.
What each Shopify plan actually includes
| Plan | Price | Reporting you get |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | $39/mo, or $29 billed annually | Dashboard, Live View, finance reports, basic acquisition reports |
| Grow | $105/mo, or $79 billed annually | Adds full marketing and customer reports |
| Advanced | $399/mo, or $299 billed annually | Adds custom report builder, profit reports, ShopifyQL, scheduled exports |
The five reports missing on Basic
- Sales reports
- Full customer reports
- Order reports
- Inventory reports
- Profit reports
That is most of what an owner would actually ask on a Monday morning. The official route to answering them is Advanced at $399 a month ($299 annual), a jump of $360 from Basic, for reporting you may use once a week.
What Shopify does not answer at any price
Profit using your real costs. Shopify's profit report exists on Advanced, but it reads the cost per item field inside Shopify. If your true landed cost lives in a supplier sheet, and for most stores it does, the report is only as right as whatever was typed into the product record months ago.
How much cash your dead stock is holding. Inventory reports show quantity on hand and units sold. Nobody multiplies the stock that has stopped moving by what it cost you, which is the figure that actually changes a decision.
Stock that will expire before it sells. Shopify has no expiry date concept at all. If you sell food, cosmetics, supplements or pharmacy lines, the single most expensive risk in your inventory is invisible to it.
How to answer those three from exports you already have
For the three questions above, add a second file. Any spreadsheet with a product column plus cost, stock on hand or expiry date will do, and it usually already exists in your supplier sheet or stock take. Dashlytics joins it to your orders on the product name and computes:
- Margin by product, with the products making and losing money ranked, using your costs rather than Shopify's
- Dead stock, valuing what is not moving so you can see the cash it is holding
- Expiry risk (FEFO), comparing each product's sales velocity against its expiry date to flag stock that will not sell in time
There is no connector to set up and no app to install. It reads the export.
When Shopify's own reporting is the right answer
Stay with Shopify's reports if you are already on Advanced, your costs are properly maintained in the product records, and you do not sell anything with an expiry date. In that case the profit report does the job and adding a tool is noise.
Upgrade your Shopify plan rather than adding a tool if you want scheduled report emails, ShopifyQL querying, or you were close to needing Advanced for its non-reporting features anyway.
Look elsewhere if you are on Basic or Grow, your real costs live in a spreadsheet, you hold stock that ages, or you want to combine Shopify with sales from other channels. Those are the cases where the plan upgrade does not actually solve the problem.
Frequently asked questions
Why can I not see sales reports on my Shopify plan?
Sales, customer, order, inventory and profit reports are not part of the Basic plan, which is $39 a month billed monthly or $29 billed annually. Basic includes the dashboard, live view, finance reports and basic acquisition reports. Full customer and marketing reports arrive on Grow ($105 monthly, $79 annual), and the custom report builder plus profit reports on Advanced ($399 monthly, $299 annual).
Does the Shopify dashboard show profit?
Only on the Advanced plan, and only if you have entered a cost per item for every product in Shopify. If your costs live in a supplier spreadsheet rather than in Shopify, the profit report cannot see them.
Can Shopify tell me which stock is not selling?
Inventory reports on the higher plans show what you hold and what has sold. What they do not do is value the stock that has stopped moving, so the number that matters, how much cash is sitting still, is left for you to work out.
Does Shopify track product expiry dates?
No. Shopify has no concept of an expiry or best-before date, so there is no report for stock at risk of expiring before it sells. Stores selling food, cosmetics or pharmacy lines have to track this outside Shopify.
How do I get better analytics without upgrading my Shopify plan?
Export your orders as CSV, which every Shopify plan allows, and analyse them elsewhere. Dashlytics reads that export directly and adds cost, stock and expiry analysis when you upload a second file with those columns. It is $19 a month flat rather than a $360 jump from Basic to Advanced, or $270 if you are on annual billing.
Export your Shopify orders and see the rest
2 dashboards free, every feature included, no credit card. Works on any Shopify plan, because it reads the export rather than your store.
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