Guide

Which sales channel actually makes money?

By . Published October 5, 2026, rewritten October 8, 2026. Every fee rate read from the platform's own page on October 5.

Part 1

Every channel takes a different cut, so revenue share isn't profit share

Do this first

  1. List every channel you sell on, with its net revenue for the last 13 weeks.
  2. Write each channel's platform fee, fulfillment cost and ad spend beside it, from the table below.
  3. Add landed cost of goods and refunds per channel.
  4. Subtract, and sort the channels by what's left.

Contribution = net revenue - platform fees - fulfillment and shipping - ad spend - cost of goods - refunds. Salaries and software sit below it, because they don't change when one channel sells more. US rates as published on October 5, 2026:

ChannelWhat it takesPublished rate
AmazonReferral fee, which includes card processing15% in Home and Kitchen. Grocery is 8% at $15 or less, 15% above1
AmazonFBA fulfillment, per unit$4.60 for a large standard item of 12 to 16 oz priced $10 to $50, plus a 3.5% surcharge since April 17, 2026. Higher peak rates apply October 15, 2026 to January 14, 20272
AmazonStorage and the selling plan$0.78 per cubic foot a month, January to September.3 $39.99 a month for the Professional plan1
ShopifyCard processing with Shopify Payments2.9% + 30¢ on Basic, 2.7% + 30¢ on Grow4
ShopifyShipping and pick-packWhatever your carrier and 3PL charge, less what customers pay for shipping
FaireCommission on marketplace orders15%, plus $10 on a new retailer's first order5
FaireCommission on Faire Direct orders0% for retailers you brought, only processing6
FairePayment processing, by payout speed3.5% + $0.30 next day, 2.4% + $0.30 at 30 days, 1.9% + $0.30 at 60 days5
  • Ad spend and cost of goods are on no rate card, and they're usually the 2 biggest lines.
  • Wholesale sells below retail. In the Part 2 example, Kestrel's wholesale price works out to $8.50 a unit against $17.08 on Amazon, so the same cost of goods takes twice the share of every wholesale dollar.
  • Most brands sell on more than one channel. eComFuel's 2026 survey of 300 operators found 63% sell on Amazon while Amazon is 20.1% of their combined revenue, and DTC-led operators grew 30.2% against 18.3% for Amazon-led ones.7
  • It's the question forums ask most about reporting. We read 17 seller threads from 2024 to 2026 on October 5, 2026, and 7 asked some version of it, including a brand at $80K a month across Shopify, Amazon and Walmart.

Part 2

Kestrel Kitchen: Amazon is half the revenue and the lowest margin

Kestrel Kitchen is a fictional brand we built to show the report, selling board oil and care kits on Amazon, its Shopify store, subscriptions and wholesale. Revenue by channel and Amazon's units and refund rate come from its sample report, the 13 weeks to the end of September 2026. Its costs are fictional too, set out so you can swap in your own:

  • Cost of goods: $3.80 a unit landed, on every channel.
  • Ad spend: 12.0% of Amazon sales, 22.0% of DTC web revenue, and $1,200 to acquire subscribers.
  • DTC shipping and pick-pack: $5 an order, net of what customers pay.
  • Wholesale: 18 Faire marketplace orders, 435 units, 6 new retailers, paid at 60 days, $12 of freight an order. Amazon: every unit through FBA at the non-peak $4.60 plus surcharge, and $400 of storage and plan fees.

Scroll the table sideways for every column.

ChannelNet revenuePlatform feesFulfillment and shippingAdsGoods and refundsContributionMargin
Amazon$78,481$12,172$21,877$9,418$19,768$15,24619.4%
DTC web$51,203$2,230$12,424$11,265$12,054$13,23025.8%
Subscription$26,938$1,173$6,536$1,200$6,342$11,68643.4%
Wholesale$3,696$690$216$0$1,653$1,13730.8%
Total$160,318$41,29925.8%
Share of revenue against share of contribution, by channel In the fictional Kestrel Kitchen example, Amazon is 49.0% of revenue and 36.9% of contribution. Subscriptions are 16.8% of revenue and 28.3% of contribution. DTC web and wholesale earn about their revenue share. Share of revenue Share of contribution Amazon 49.0% 36.9% DTC web 31.9% 32.0% Subscription 16.8% 28.3% Wholesale 2.3% 2.8%
An illustration on the fictional Kestrel sample, with fictional costs. Your order can flip.
  • Amazon earns 19.4%, the lowest margin, because FBA's per-unit fee is heavy on a $17 item.
  • Subscriptions earn 43.4%, because a recurring order carries no ad cost after the first one.
  • Change the assumptions and the order can flip, so rank your channels on your own costs, never on a benchmark.

Part 3

3 decisions the table changes

Do this first

  1. Read last month's channel shift on contribution before you call it a problem.
  2. Work out contribution per unit on each channel before you set a discount code.
  3. Check FBA's fee as a share of price before you send the next low-priced product to Amazon.
  • Where the next ad dollar goes. Kestrel's sample report found demand moving from Amazon to its own site in one week. On revenue that looks like Amazon breaking. On contribution, a customer who moves can be worth more. The full case: Amazon down, Shopify up.
  • Price parity. Kestrel earns $3.32 of contribution per unit on Amazon and $4.17 on its own site, so a code worth up to $0.85 a unit on the site still out-earns a full-price Amazon sale.
  • Which channel gets the next product. FBA's $4.76 a unit is 27.9% of Kestrel's $17.08 average price, before any other cost. A low-priced item may earn more in a bundle, where one fee covers several items, or on your own site first.

Part 4

Where the numbers live in each platform

Do this first

  1. Export Amazon's fees by month from Date Range Reports.
  2. Download Shopify's Payments activity report and Net sales by channel.
  3. Export Faire's Orders for commission and processing per payout.
  4. Put one line per channel in your monthly review.
  • Amazon: fees per order are in Payments, Transaction View, and the Date Range Reports in the Reports Repository export them by month. Ad spend is in Amazon Ads.
  • Shopify: processing fees and payouts are in Finance, Documents, in the Shopify Payments activity report.8 Revenue by channel is in Analytics, Reports, Net sales by channel.9
  • Faire: commission and processing come off each payout, in the Orders export. Total sales and Marketplace against Faire Direct orders are in Shop Analytics.
  • The review: the monthly business review template has a row for margin by channel.

Want this table built from your own numbers?

Tell us where you sell, and we'll build this month's review across every channel, the way the Kestrel sample is, with margin by channel once your cost of goods is in. The first month is free, and we never log in to your accounts.

Get your first month free See the sample report

Sources

  1. Amazon. Selling on Amazon pricing, referral fees and selling plans. Read October 5, 2026. Link
  2. Amazon Seller Central. 2026 US FBA fulfillment fee changes. Read October 5, 2026. Link
  3. Amazon Seller Central. Monthly inventory storage fees. Read October 5, 2026. Link
  4. Shopify. Pricing. Read October 5, 2026. Link
  5. Faire Help Center. Commission and fees for brands. Read October 5, 2026. Link
  6. Faire Help Center. Faire Direct, 0% commission. Read October 5, 2026. Link
  7. eComFuel. Ecommerce Trends Report 2026, 300 owners with $3.5 billion in combined revenue. Published April 2, 2026. Link
  8. Shopify Help Center. Shopify Payments activity report. Read October 5, 2026. Link
  9. Shopify Help Center. Sales reports. Read October 5, 2026. Link

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