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As Shopify heads into 2026 with millions of active stores worldwide and continued growth in global ecommerce, TrueProfit — a Net Profit Analytics platform for Shopify merchants — is urging new founders to treat profitability as a starting requirement, not an afterthought.

With a low barrier to entry and a mature app ecosystem, Shopify remains one of the easiest ways to launch an online business. But TrueProfit’s latest briefing on early-stage stores suggests that many new founders still underestimate the realities of ad costs, fees and shrinking margins — and overestimate what they’ll earn in their first year.

“Starting a Shopify business in 2026 is easier than ever technically, but financially it’s never been more demanding,” said a TrueProfit spokesperson. “The people who win this time around won’t just ‘launch fast’ — they’ll launch with a clear profit model and a way to monitor it from day one.”

A huge opportunity — but not a guaranteed income

Recent ecommerce reports continue to project strong growth for online retail into the late 2020s, with global ecommerce sales expected to keep climbing as more consumers shift spending online and social commerce matures. For many, that makes “start a Shopify store” feel like an obvious move.

TrueProfit’s analysis of early-stage merchants, however, paints a more nuanced picture. In its guide on how much can you make from shopify, the company notes that typical outcomes vary widely:

• Around 60% of new Shopify store owners bring in under $1,000 per month during their first year. This is particularly common for solo operators who aren’t investing much in paid ads, product research, or conversion rate optimization. For many, this period is mainly about testing to find winning products on Shopify, getting familiar with the platform, and building initial brand awareness.

• Roughly 20% of stores reach $10,000 or more in monthly revenue after 12–24 months. These brands are usually consistent with their marketing, actively refine their storefront for better conversions, and rely on analytics to improve their product lineup.

• The highest-performing 10% of Shopify stores, often run by seasoned founders or dedicated teams, can generate $100,000+ per month. They tend to benefit from owning a strong niche, having a recognizable brand, and operating scalable fulfillment and operations.

The company stresses that 2026 will still reward new Shopify merchants — but mostly those who treat their store like a business from day one, not a side experiment based on trends and guesswork.

Why 2026 will favor high-margin, data-driven small businesses

TrueProfit’s internal briefing highlights three forces shaping the landscape for new Shopify brands in 2026:

• Rising acquisition costs: Competition for attention on Meta, TikTok and Google continues to increase, pushing up CPMs and making inefficient ad spend more expensive than ever. “You can still buy traffic,” the report notes, “but there’s far less room to be sloppy.”

• More sophisticated customers: Shoppers are now used to comparing offers instantly, reading reviews across multiple platforms and expecting clear communication on shipping and returns. Weak product pages and generic messaging will have a harder time converting.

• The growing importance of margin: In an environment where big marketplaces and aggregators can always undercut on price, the most resilient Shopify businesses are those that identify high profit margin businesses they can realistically build — whether that means premium positioning, bundles or niches where customers value expertise as much as the product itself.

The message for 2026 founders is simple: the days of “throw up a store, run broad ads and hope” are effectively over. Sustainable Shopify businesses will be built on understanding unit economics — and watching those numbers daily.

TrueProfit’s solutions: Real-time profit visibility for new Shopify brands

While many new merchants start with basic Shopify reports and spreadsheets, TrueProfit argues that this stack quickly becomes brittle once multiple products, channels and campaigns are in play.

The TrueProfit app, available on the Shopify App Store, is designed to give founders a live, profit-first view of their store by:

• Pulling in revenue, refunds, discounts and taxes directly from Shopify.

• Allowing merchants to set COGS and shipping rules per product, variant and country.

• Syncing ad spend from platforms like Facebook, Google, TikTok, Bing, Snapchat and Amazon in real time.

• Calculating net profit and profit margin across the store and at product, channel and campaign level.

• Providing P&L reports, Customer Lifetime Value insights, mobile apps and all-store views for operators running multiple brands.

For founders starting a Shopify business in 2026, this means they can see — often within days of launching paid campaigns — which products are genuinely profitable, which are only breaking even, and which are quietly losing money despite “good” ROAS.

“Your first year on Shopify doesn’t need to be a guessing game,” the spokesperson added. “If you can see your real net profit per product and per campaign, you can make decisions like an established brand from the very beginning.”

Helping new founders choose better opportunities

In addition to the app, TrueProfit has invested heavily in educational content aimed at new and aspiring Shopify merchants. Furthermore, their guide to high profit margin businesses give founders a more realistic baseline for what’s possible — and what it takes to get there.

Rather than promising overnight success, these resources explain:

• Typical revenue and profit ranges at different stages.

• How niche selection, product type and pricing affect margin.

• Why some business models lend themselves to healthier margins than others.

• How tools like TrueProfit fit into a broader system of testing and optimization.

“Our goal isn’t just to help merchants track what already happened,” the company notes in the briefing. “It’s to help them choose better, higher-margin opportunities before they commit their time and savings.”

About TrueProfit

TrueProfit is a Net Profit Analytics platform that shows Shopify and ecommerce merchants their true net profit, in real time and on autopilot. By consolidating store data, cost assumptions and live ad spend into a single profit dashboard, TrueProfit replaces error-prone spreadsheets and delayed reporting with clear, actionable insights.

TrueProfit’s core features include a real-time profit dashboard, automatic cost tracking (COGS, shipping, transaction fees, taxes, custom costs), synced ad spend from major platforms, product and campaign-level profit analytics, Customer Lifetime Value tracking, P&L reports, mobile apps and all-store views for multi-brand operators.

For more information, visit trueprofit.io

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