Product Costs
Product costs let you track the cost of goods sold (COGS) for your products, enabling profit-based metrics in your experiment reports. Once enabled, Elevate calculates Profit Per Visitor and Total Profit for each variation — so you can measure which version is actually the most profitable, not just which one generates the most revenue.
Why It Matters
Revenue Per Visitor tells you how much money a variation brings in, but it doesn't account for what those products cost you. A variation that increases revenue by 10% but pushes visitors toward lower-margin products might actually reduce your profit.
With product costs enabled, you get:
Profit Per Visitor — Revenue minus product costs, per unique visitor
Total Profit — Net earnings per variation after deducting costs
Profit-based comparisons — See which variation is truly most profitable, not just highest-grossing
This is especially valuable for:
Price experiments — A lower price might convert more, but does it generate more profit after accounting for costs?
Product image experiments — Different images might drive sales of different product variants with different margins
Any experiment where margins vary — If your products have different cost structures, revenue alone can be misleading
How to Enable Product Costs
Go to Product Costs in the Elevate sidebar
Click Enable Product Costs
Elevate imports your product catalog and creates a cost table
The initial setup takes a couple of minutes. Once enabled, you'll see the product costs management page where you can enter costs for each product.
Setting Up Costs
Product-Level Costs
The simplest setup: enter a single cost for each product. This cost applies to all variants of that product.
Find the product in the product costs table (you can search or filter by tag, type, or collection)
Enter the cost per unit in the cost field
Variant-Level Costs
If different variants of the same product have different costs (e.g., a larger size costs more to produce), you can set costs at the variant level:
Expand a product to see its individual variants
Enter a cost for each variant independently
If all variants have the same cost, you only need to set the product-level cost — it applies to all variants automatically.
Quantity Breaks
For products where the cost per unit decreases at higher quantities (bulk pricing from suppliers), you can configure quantity breaks:
Click the quantity breaks option on a variant
Add tiers with quantity ranges and the cost per unit at each tier
For example:
1–9 units: $9.00 per unit
10–49 units: $7.50 per unit
50+ units: $6.24 per unit
Elevate uses the correct cost based on the quantity ordered, giving you accurate profit calculations even for variable-cost products.
Payment Processing Costs
Beyond product costs, you can also enter your payment gateway fees to factor transaction costs into profit calculations.
Under the gateway costs section, enter:
Percentage fee — The percentage your payment processor charges per transaction (e.g., 2.9%)
Fixed fee — The flat fee per transaction (e.g., $0.30)
These fees are deducted from revenue when calculating profit, giving you a more accurate picture of true profitability.
How Costs Are Used in Reports
Once product costs are enabled and configured:
Profit and Profit/Visitor columns appear in the Results table
Profit Per Visitor becomes available as an experiment goal
The Advanced Analytics tabs include profit-based metrics alongside revenue metrics
Subscription Profit Per Visitor appears in the Subscriptions tab (if applicable)
Profit is calculated as: Revenue − Product Costs − Payment Processing Fees
Note: If you haven't entered costs for a product, its cost is treated as zero — meaning profit equals revenue for that product. Enter costs for all products in your experiments for the most accurate profit data.
Re-importing Products
If you've added new products to your store after enabling product costs, you can re-import your catalog to pick them up:
Click the Re-import button on the product costs page
Elevate syncs your product catalog and adds any new products
Existing costs are preserved — only new products are added
Where You'll See the Prompt
Throughout the Elevate app, you'll see an Enable Product Cost button in places where profit data would be useful — for example, in the experiment results page filters. This links to the product costs setup page so you can enable it at any time.
Once enabled, the button disappears and profit columns appear automatically in all experiment reports.
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