Cost Metrics

Overview

Cost metrics track every expense that comes out of your TikTok Shop revenue -- from the products themselves to platform fees, shipping, and warehouse costs. Understanding these costs is essential for knowing whether your shop is truly profitable. All cost values are shown as positive numbers on the frontend for readability, but they reduce your profit.

Metrics

COGS (Cost of Goods Sold)

• What it shows: The total resolved inventory cost of the units sold in the selected period.
• Formula: Sum of the cost resolved for each sold unit
• Where you see it: Dashboard, Profit & Loss, Sales & Profit, Product Details
• How costs are determined: Dashboardly first uses a priced FIFO lot when one covers the sold unit. Otherwise it uses the SKU Unit COG period active on the order date, then the product-level period active on that date. If no value applies, COGS is $0.
• Important notes: COGS must be configured by the seller because Dashboardly cannot know the supplier cost automatically. Product defaults cover variants without their own cost; a SKU period overrides the product period only for that variant. A new Effective Date does not rewrite earlier periods. COGS remains on a shipped/refunded unit when the product was not physically returned.

Fees & Taxes

• What it shows: The total platform fees TikTok charges on your sales.
• Formula: Referral Fee + Co-funded Promotion Fee + Other Fees
• Where you see it: Dashboard, Profit & Loss, Sales & Profit
• Fee accuracy: Fees are now normalized per line item for multi-item orders. When an order contains multiple products, platform fees, taxes, and commissions are allocated proportionally to each item rather than being lumped together. This makes per-product profit calculations more accurate, especially for promotional orders where discounts apply unevenly across items.
• Important notes: This includes TikTok's referral fee (their commission on each sale), transaction processing fees, and any other platform charges. The breakdown into individual fee types is visible on the Profit & Loss page. Recent orders (last 7-14 days) may show estimated fees based on your shop's historical fee rate. These estimates become exact once TikTok settles payments, typically within 7-14 days.

Customer-Paid Shipping, Shipping Costs, and Net Shipping

• Customer-paid shipping: The amount charged to the buyer. This is a credit and is not included in Gross Sales.
• Shipping costs: TikTok/carrier shipping charges and shipping adjustments attributed to the orders or settlement. This line is normally a deduction.
• Net Shipping: Customer-paid shipping + Shipping costs/adjustments using their signed values.
• Where you see it: Profit & Loss, Sales & Profit, and Product Overview.

A buyer paying for shipping does not guarantee a positive Net Shipping result. If the carrier label, TikTok shipping adjustment, seller-funded shipping discount, or return-shipping charge is larger than the amount collected from the buyer, the difference is a seller expense and Net Shipping is negative.

Recent unsettled orders can use provisional TikTok values. Settlement basis replaces those estimates with the final settlement components when TikTok publishes them. Accrual basis keeps the activity on the sold-order period; components may still refine as pending orders settle. For FBS orders with no authoritative TikTok shipping value, Dashboardly can use the dated FBS shipping fallback configured in Inventory.

FBT Fees

• What it shows: Warehouse and fulfillment fees charged by TikTok's Fulfillment by TikTok (FBT) program.
• Formula: Pulled from TikTok settlement data
• Where you see it: Profit & Loss, Sales & Profit
• Important notes: FBT fees only apply if you use TikTok's fulfillment warehouses. If you handle your own shipping, this will be zero. These fees cover storage, picking, packing, and shipping handled by TikTok's warehouses.

Co-funded Promotion Fee

• What it shows: Your share of the cost for co-funded promotional campaigns with TikTok.
• Formula: Pulled from TikTok fee data (cofunded_promotion_service_fee_amount)
• Where you see it: Profit & Loss (within Fees & Taxes breakdown)
• Important notes: When you participate in TikTok co-funded promotions, both you and TikTok contribute. This metric shows YOUR portion (the expense). TikTok's portion appears as Platform Subsidy (income for you). These are two separate values -- do not confuse them.

Landed Cost

• What it shows: The full cost of getting your products into the warehouse, including product cost, shipping to warehouse, customs duties, and import taxes.
• Formula: COGS + Inventory Shipping + Customs Duty + Import VAT
• Where you see it: Product Details, Inventory
• Important notes: Landed Cost gives you a more complete view of your true per-unit cost than COGS alone. You can enter Inventory Shipping, Customs Duty, and Import VAT on the Inventory page alongside your unit costs.

How These Metrics Connect

All cost metrics feed into the Operating Profit calculation:

1. COGS is subtracted first to get Gross Profit
2. Then Fees & Taxes, the signed Net Shipping impact, and FBT Fees contribute to Operating Profit
3. Co-funded Promotion Fee is part of the Fees & Taxes total

The more accurately you set your COGS and landed costs, the more accurate your profit metrics will be.

Common Questions

Why is COGS showing as zero?

You need to set your product unit costs on the Inventory page. The fastest approach is to set cost at the product level, which automatically applies to all SKUs. Dashboardly cannot automatically determine what you paid for your products. Once you enter costs, COGS will calculate automatically for all past and future orders.

Why is Net Shipping negative if every customer pays for shipping?

Customer-paid shipping is only one side of the calculation. Dashboardly also applies TikTok/carrier shipping costs and adjustments. If those deductions are larger than the buyer-paid amount, Net Shipping is negative even though every buyer paid a shipping fee. Compare the separate Customer-paid shipping and Shipping costs rows for the same report basis and date range.

Why do Fees & Taxes seem different for recent orders?

Dashboardly uses a 3-tier data system for fee accuracy. Tier 3 (newest orders, 0-3 days): fees are estimated based on your shop's historical average fee rate. Tier 2.5 (3-14 days): TikTok provides pre-settlement fee data that is more accurate. Tier 2 (after settlement): final exact amounts from TikTok's settlement. This means recent fees will refine automatically as TikTok settles payments -- no action needed from you.

What is the difference between COGS and Landed Cost?

COGS is just the product purchase price. Landed Cost adds shipping-to-warehouse, customs duties, and import VAT on top. If you source products internationally, Landed Cost gives a more accurate picture of your true product cost.

Do cancelled orders affect COGS?

It depends. If an order was cancelled before shipping, COGS is not counted. If the order was shipped and then cancelled (but the product was not returned), COGS is still counted because you lost that inventory.