Let's go straight to the real problem:
most e-commerce stores don't know whether they're making money.
They see sales.
They see ROAS.
They see orders.
But they don't see the only thing that matters:
real profitability.
In this guide you'll learn exactly how to calculate it step by step,
with the right approach for e-commerce in LATAM (not textbook theory).
⚡ TL;DR — The truth in one sentence
Profitability = what's left after ALL costs.
- Sales ≠ profitability.
- ROAS ≠ profitability.
- Revenue ≠ money.
- Only real margin tells you whether the business works.
1) The root mistake: you're calculating wrong from the start
Most founders calculate something like this:
Sales – product cost = profit
That number is useless.
Because it ignores everything that actually destroys margin:
- Payment fees.
- Shipping costs.
- Ads.
- Returns.
- Installments and financing.
- Operating costs.
👉 If you don't include all of that, you're making decisions with false numbers.
2) The right e-commerce profitability formula
This is the formula that actually reflects reality:
Profitability = Revenue collected – (Variable costs + Ads + Fixed costs)
Important: revenue collected, not revenue sold.
Because in LATAM:
you sell today → you get paid later.
3) Step by step to calculate your real profitability
Step 1 — Real revenue
Add up everything that actually paid out (Mercado Pago, bank, etc.).
Step 2 — Variable costs
- Product.
- Shipping.
- Fees.
- Installments.
- Packaging.
- Returns.
Step 3 — Ads
All your spend on Meta, Google, TikTok and influencers.
Step 4 — Fixed costs
- Salaries.
- Tools.
- Office.
- Services.
What's left after all of that = your real profitability.
4) A simple (but realistic) example
- Revenue collected: $100,000
- Variable costs: $60,000
- Ads: $25,000
- Fixed costs: $10,000
Result = 100,000 – 60,000 – 25,000 – 10,000 = $5,000
You sold $100k…
and only made $5k.
👉 That's the reality most people don't see.
5) Why most people get it wrong
- They don't include every cost.
- They use wrong averages.
- They don't match Ads against real sales.
- They don't account for installments.
- They don't measure by SKU.
Result: they think they're making money when they aren't.
6) The metric you should really be watching
It's not ROAS.
It's not revenue.
It's:
Real margin + net profit
That decides whether you can scale or not.
7) So… where does Escalafy come in?
You can calculate all of this by hand.
But not in real time.
Escalafy automates all of it:
- Real margin by day.
- Profitability by SKU.
- Ads connected to real sales.
- Automatic costs.
- Profit in real time.
It's not that you don't sell enough.
It's that you're not seeing your real profitability.
And what you can't see, you can't optimize.
Keep reading
What Escalafy does for your store
Connect your channels and see the truth behind your numbers. No Excel, in real time.