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Margin Analyst

ROAS is a ratio. Profit is the number you keep.

Max connects every ad dollar to actual profit after COGS, shipping, returns and fees, then names which products earn and which lose money on every sale.

Book a demoHow the agents work →
How Max works
Leads withThe margin impact, after COGS, shipping, returns and fees.
NeverAnswer in ROAS when the question is about profit, or assume a cost this brand has not provided.
Why this exists

A 4x ROAS product can lose money on every order. Most stacks never find out.

Revenue is not margin.

Ad platforms optimise to revenue because revenue is the number they can see. COGS, shipping, payment fees and returns all land after the pixel fires, so the campaign that looks best in the dashboard is often the one funding the discount.

Returns arrive a month late.

A campaign is scaled on week-two performance and the return rate lands in week six. By the time the refunds are booked, the budget decision is two cycles old and nobody re-runs the math on it.

Blended margin hides the losers.

A category average of 58% can carry a hero SKU at 71% and a bundle at 12%. Optimising against the average scales both, and the one that pays for the other stays invisible until inventory turns.

Promos are priced on gut.

A 20% code is approved because last year's worked. Pull-forward, margin hit and the customers who would have paid full price are not in the model, because there is no model.

What Max ships

Five capabilities. One P&L view of spend.

Each capability answers a specific question: what is the margin, which SKU earns, is this discount worth running, when does the customer pay back, and what does the rest of the agents need to know.

Contribution margin per order

Revenue less COGS, shipping, payment fees and returns, per order rather than per report, so margin is a fact about the basket instead of a quarterly average.

  • COGS read from Shopify per variant, once you set cost per item
  • Shipping, fees and refunds netted at the order
  • Margin held per order, not blended to a category mean

Needs. Needs cost per item set on your Shopify variants. Until then this stays gated rather than estimating.

Example. Example. £84 order, £31 COGS, £6 ship, £2.40 fees: £44.60 contribution before ad cost.

SKU profitability

Every SKU ranked by what it actually contributes, so the hero product and the one quietly subsidised by it stop being averaged together.

  • Per-SKU contribution against landed cost
  • Return rate carried per variant, not per catalogue
  • Bundles decomposed to their components

Needs. Needs cost per item set on your Shopify variants. The one-off SKU Profitability tool takes costs typed in instead.

Example. Example. The best-selling variant ranks fourth on contribution once returns are netted.

Promo and discount P&L

A discount modelled before it runs and scored after it ends, including the pull-forward it borrows from the weeks on either side.

  • Baseline demand estimated from the pre-promo window
  • Margin hit separated from incremental volume
  • Post-promo trough measured, not assumed away

Example. Example. A 20% code that lifts units 40% can still cut contribution if half the buyers were coming anyway.

A typical week

What Max does between decisions. One workweek, hour by hour.

Timings are the shape of the cycle. Exact figures depend on catalogue, return rate and payment mix.

Mon · 5:20 AM
Reconciled

Pulls the weekend's orders and nets refunds, shipping and payment fees into contribution per order.

Mon · 6:05 AM
Re-ranked

Re-ranks the catalogue on contribution. Two SKUs that led on revenue drop out of the top ten.

Tue · 9:40 AM
Scored

Scores last week's promo against its pre-promo baseline and reports the pull-forward separately from the lift.

Wed · 7:15 AM
Flagged

Flags a bundle whose contribution has gone negative since the shipping rate changed.

Thu · 11:00 AM
Priced

Prices Sam's proposed budget shift against margin rather than ROAS and returns the constraint.

Fri · 4:30 PM
Delivered

Updates cohort payback as the week's second orders land, and hands Dex the figures for the recap.

Profit, not proxies

See what is actually left.

Max reads your orders, costs and returns, charges spend against Parker's incremental revenue, and tells you which products and which campaigns pay for themselves.

Book a demoTry the promo P&L tool

Looking for something specific? Parker de-biases the revenue Max charges against →, Sam tests the moves Max prices → or Dana reconciles the orders underneath →.