Profit by product, after ads: what every product really makes
Each product's profit after the marketplace's fees, what it cost you and its ads, per marketplace. The products losing money come first, each with how far its ads can go before they stop paying.
Why it matters
On Amazon, a product can sell every day and still lose money. Its price has to cover the referral fee, the fulfilment fee, refunds, the landed cost of the unit and the ads that sold it. Amazon's ads console shows ACOS per campaign, but it doesn't know what your product cost or what Amazon's fees left you, so it can't tell you whether the ads made or lost money. Bookalyze knows both.
Where in the app: Commerce → Channel profit → By product
What you need first
What you should see
- The marketplace connected, with its orders coming in (each product's units and sales come from its orders)
- Its settlements (Amazon, Walmart) or transactions (Noon, eBay) brought in for the period: they tell Bookalyze what the marketplace leaves you from each sale
- Its SKUs linked to products (Inventory → Products), and each product with a cost: a delivery with its landed cost, or opening stock
- For ad spend per product: Amazon Ads connected on the marketplace's channel page (see Connect Amazon Ads)
Tip: Without Amazon Ads, the page still works: it shows each product's profit before ads, and the advertising in your books as one line for the marketplace, not split by product.
The summary at the top
| Card | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Profit after ads | Every marketplace together, in your main currency, for the products with a cost |
| Ad spend and TACOS | What ads cost, and that as a share of all sales. Under about 10% is light; over 20% means sales lean hard on ads |
| Products losing money | How many lost money after their ads in the period, and how much they lost together |
| Ads with no sales | Spend on products whose ads sold nothing in the period, and how many products have no cost yet |
Each product's row
| Column | How it's worked out |
|---|---|
| Units, Sales | Order lines bought in the period, cancelled orders left out; sales less promotions |
| Profit before ads | Sales × what the marketplace left you per sale (its keep rate, below), less units × the product's cost. Underneath: per unit |
| Ad spend | Each day's spend on the product from the ads reports |
| ACOS / break-even | ACOS is ad spend over the sales the ads brought. Break-even ACOS is profit before ads over sales: the most ACOS can be before each sale from ads loses money. Red when ACOS is above it |
| TACOS | Ad spend over all the product's sales, from ads or not |
| Profit after ads | Profit before ads less ad spend; underneath, per unit and as a margin of sales |
Click a row for the rest: what the marketplace left you, the product cost, sales and orders from ads, return on ad spend (ROAS), the share of sales that came without ads, clicks, impressions, cost per click, break-even cost per click and how many clicks buy.
The verdicts, worst first
| Verdict | What it means | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| Losing money | It loses money before ads: the price doesn't cover the fees and the cost | The price, the fulfilment fee (size tier), the landed cost. Ads only make it worse |
| Ads eat the profit | Profitable on its own, but its ads cost more than that profit | Bids above the break-even cost per click; campaigns with high ACOS |
| Ads with no sales | Ad spend and no sales from the ads in the period | Pause or rethink those campaigns; check the listing is buyable |
| Ads cost more than they earn | Still profitable overall, but ACOS is above break-even: each sale from ads loses money and organic sales pay for it | Fine for a launch or to defend rank, on purpose and for a while |
| Cost missing | Not linked to a product, or the product has no cost yet | Inventory → Products: link the SKU; add a delivery or opening stock |
| Healthy | Profitable after ads, ACOS under break-even | Room to grow |
Sponsored Brands, and ads not tied to one product
Sponsored Brands campaigns promote a brand or several products, and Amazon reports their cost per campaign, not per product. Bookalyze keeps them as their own line under each marketplace's products: counted in the marketplace's total and its TACOS, not split into any product, so no product looks worse for a campaign that wasn't about it.
Tip: On Profit and loss by product you can choose to share Sponsored Brands out by each product's sales from ads instead (marked as estimated). See Profit and loss by product, line by line.
The keep rate: what each sale leaves after the marketplace
Bookalyze takes the marketplace's money on orders in the period (referral and fulfilment fees, refunds and the rest, with the advertising taken out) over the same orders' sales: that's the keep rate, shown under the marketplace's name. On Amazon, a product with 5 or more settled units uses the rate its own orders show, because a fulfilment fee costs a cheap product a bigger share of its price. One with fewer uses Amazon's fee estimate for its listing (kept each time you refresh prices on Inventory → Prices) and its own refunds. Each product's share is its sales × its keep rate.
Storage, the selling plan, inbound placement, Vine and coupon fees aren't on any order and don't grow with each unit sold, so they're not in the keep rate: they're their own line under the marketplace's products, in full. Shared by sales, a launch month's storage and Vine fees would make every product look like it loses money.
Units given away (Vine, or any order whose promotion is the whole price) aren't in a product's units or keep rate either: their cost and the marketplace's fees on them are a line of their own, so a launch's free units don't make the units that sell look worse.
Tip: Orders the marketplace hasn't settled yet are estimated at the same rates. The marketplace's line says how much of the period's sales came after its last settlement.
Tip: A marketplace with no settlements in the period (a new one) uses the last 90 days. With none in 90 days either, profit shows as — until some come in.
Caution: A product with a much bigger fulfilment fee than average (a large, light item) leaves less than the keep rate says. Check it on Inventory → Prices, where Amazon's own fee estimate for the listing is.
Download it
Download CSV gives every column for every product, including the details behind the click, plus each marketplace's Sponsored Brands line, for the same period and marketplace.
What you should see
What you should see
- Every product that sold or ran ads in the period, worst first
- A profit before and after ads for every product with a cost
- ACOS next to break-even ACOS on every advertised product
- Sponsored Brands as its own line
- Advertising in your books next to the ads reports' total, at the bottom of each marketplace
Read next
Profit and loss by product, line by line
For any period, every product's exact profit and loss: units sold and returned, sales, promotions, refunds, each marketplace fee, storage, cost of goods and ads, from the marketplaces' own rows. Each amount is marked when it's estimated.
Read the guideACOS, TACOS, break-even ACOS and cost per click, with an example
The five numbers that say whether ads make or lose money, how each is worked out, and one product's month worked through from sales to profit after ads.
Read the guideGive Bookalyze read access to your Amazon Ads reports on Amazon's own page, once per region. Ad spend per product then comes in every day, 60 days back to start.
Read the guideFind and fix the products losing money, once a month
A 30-minute monthly routine on Profit by product: which products lose money after ads, why, and what to change for each verdict.
Read the guideAd spend in your books and in the ads reports: why they differ, and why nothing counts twice
Amazon charges ads from your payouts or your card; the ads reports say what was spent each day. How Channel profit and Profit by product use each, and how to make your books complete.
Read the guide