Ecommerce reporting comparison

Shopify Analytics vs a custom data warehouse: when built-in reports stop being enough

Shopify’s built-in analytics are free, real time, and better than ever. Here is what they cover and the point where brands need a warehouse instead.

Linus TseGreyfield DataFacts last checked November 3, 2026

Contents 10 sections

The short answer

Start with Shopify Analytics. It is included in every plan, runs in real time, has cohorts, profit reports from your unit costs, ShopifyQL, and an AI assistant that builds reports from questions. Brands need a warehouse when important revenue happens outside the Shopify store, when profit has to include fees and ad spend, or when finance needs numbers that tie to the books.

How Shopify Analytics and a custom warehouse differ

01
Store data vs business data
Shopify reports read the store’s own database. A warehouse adds Amazon fees, TikTok Shop, wholesale, ad spend, and costs.
02
Gross profit vs contribution margin
Shopify’s profit reports use the cost per item you enter; fees and ad spend are not included. A warehouse models the full margin.
03
Exports vs a warehouse
Shopify exports reports as files. A warehouse keeps all history in Snowflake for any tool to query.

Pricing at a glance

Shopify Analytics

Shopify Inc. (built-in feature of the Shopify admin; Shopify acqui-hired the Peel Insights analytics team in May 2024)

Shopify Analytics is the reporting built into every Shopify store: a customizable dashboard, prebuilt reports (sales, customers, profit, marketing, inventory and more), data explorations, the ShopifyQL query editor and Sidekick, Shopify's AI assistant, for plain-English report building. It covers data held in the Shopify store itself and suits merchants whose business runs mostly through Shopify.

Pricing model: Included in the Shopify subscription (flat monthly plan fee)
Published starting price: Included at no extra cost; Basic plan is $39/month billed monthly ($29 billed annually) per third-party pricing guide
Free tier: No separate free tier; analytics comes with any Shopify plan
What drives cost: Which plans get which reports: Shopify says the main analytics features are available on any plan. Starter (not available to new stores) lists analytics page, finance, product analytics, Live View, and acquisition, inventory, behavior, marketing, order, sales, retail sales, profit and customer reports. Basic includes all reports plus custom reports built with data explorations. Grow includes the same report set and custom reports. Advanced adds what Shopify calls its most comprehensive reports and predicted values for certain reports. Plus adds organization analytics across multiple stores (cross-store dashboards, store dimension, FROM ORGANIZATION ShopifyQL). Plan prices from a third-party guide updated May 2026: Starter $5, Basic $29 annual / $39 monthly, Grow $79 / $105, Advanced $299 / $399, Plus from $2,300/month on a 3-year term. Plan availability of ShopifyQL editor and Sidekick in analytics is not stated in Shopify's docs (unknown). Setup time: none beyond having a store; cohort projections need 24 months of data per cohort.

Pricing source, checked November 3, 2026

Custom warehouse (Greyfield)

A Snowflake warehouse with dbt models and a BI layer (usually Sigma), built around your sources and your definitions, that you own after handover.

Pricing model: Project-based build, optional ongoing support
Published starting price: Scoped after a free consultation
Free tier: No
What drives cost: Warehouse, connector, and BI licences are billed by those vendors directly to you.

Pricing source, checked November 3, 2026

Feature comparison

"Not verified" means we could not confirm it from public docs, not that the feature is missing. Each cell links to the page we checked.

Sales channels

Sales channels: Custom warehouse (Greyfield) and Shopify Analytics
Feature	Custom warehouse (Greyfield)	Shopify Analytics
Shopify Native Shopify connector.	Yes Through a managed connector such as Fivetran or Airbyte. source	Yes Native; reports read directly from the store database source
Amazon Seller Central Native Amazon connector.	Yes Orders, settlements, and fee events. source	Orders only, no fees Marketplace Connect syncs Amazon orders into Shopify; no Seller Central fees/settlement reporting documented source
TikTok Shop Native TikTok Shop connector.	Yes Modeled alongside Shopify and Amazon. source	Not verified Not covered in the analytics docs reviewed source
Wholesale, retail, ERP, 3PL Native connectors for sources beyond the online store, such as NetSuite, Faire, retail POS, or a 3PL.	Yes Any source with a connector or export. source	Partly Shopify POS retail sales reports are native; no ERP, 3PL or wholesale-platform connectors documented source

Marketing

Marketing: Custom warehouse (Greyfield) and Shopify Analytics
Feature	Custom warehouse (Greyfield)	Shopify Analytics
Ad platform spend Meta, Google, and TikTok ad spend connectors.	Yes Ad spend modeled next to orders. source	Partly Ad spend, ROAS, CAC only for channels that report cost data to Shopify via connected apps source
Tracking pixel + attribution Its own pixel and multi-touch attribution models.	No Attribution from a dedicated tool can be loaded in. source	Partly Five click-based attribution models on Shopify's own session data; no view-through or cross-device MTA documented source
MMM / incrementality Marketing mix modeling or incrementality testing.	No Not part of a standard build.	No No MMM or incrementality testing in Shopify analytics docs source

Profit and customers

Profit and customers: Custom warehouse (Greyfield) and Shopify Analytics
Feature	Custom warehouse (Greyfield)	Shopify Analytics
Profit with COGS and fees Contribution margin after product cost, shipping, and fees.	Yes Fees, refunds, and cost timing defined in dbt. source	Partly Gross profit by product/variant/POS and margin reports from cost per item; fees and ad spend not included source
LTV and cohorts Lifetime value, cohort, and retention analysis.	Yes Contribution-margin LTV by acquisition channel. source	Yes Customer cohort analysis, predicted spend tier, RFM analysis source
Subscription analytics Recharge or other subscription reporting.	Yes Recharge renewals and skips modeled as events. source	Not verified No Recharge or subscription-specific reports in docs reviewed source
Custom metric definitions Define your own metric logic.	Yes Definitions live in dbt models you own. source	Partly Custom reports and explorations over Shopify's metrics; custom formula metrics not documented source

Data access

Data access: Custom warehouse (Greyfield) and Shopify Analytics
Feature	Custom warehouse (Greyfield)	Shopify Analytics
Data in a warehouse you can query Your modeled data lands in Snowflake, BigQuery, or a hosted warehouse you can query with SQL.	Yes Your own Snowflake account. source	No No warehouse sync documented; manual exports in CSV, XML, JSONL or Parquet source
SQL in the product Write SQL inside the product.	Yes Full SQL in Snowflake and in Sigma. source	ShopifyQL ShopifyQL, a commerce query language, in the query editor; not standard SQL and store data only source
AI assistant Natural-language questions about your data.	Partly Depends on the BI tool; we have built text-to-SQL access for a client. source	Yes Sidekick builds reports from plain-English questions in the query editor source
Mobile app A native mobile app.	Partly Depends on the BI tool you choose.	Yes Reporting and ShopifyQL in the Shopify mobile app; analytics widgets source

What Shopify Analytics does well

Shopify redesigned its analytics in 2025: real-time data, custom dashboards, explorations, benchmarks, and customer cohort analysis. ShopifyQL lets you query store data, and Sidekick, Shopify’s AI assistant, writes that query from a plain-English question. Advanced and Plus plans add more reports, and Plus adds cross-store dashboards.

For a brand that sells almost entirely through its Shopify store, this covers most daily questions for no extra cost.

Where it stops

Amazon orders synced through Shopify’s marketplace app appear as orders, but we found no reporting on Amazon fees or settlements. We found no TikTok Shop, ERP, 3PL, or wholesale-platform reporting in the analytics docs. ShopifyQL is not standard SQL and covers store data only, and there is no warehouse sync.

Those gaps are the usual triggers: Shopify, finance, and marketing reporting different revenue, refunds dated differently from orders, and Amazon profit changing after the sale.

Where Shopify Analytics is better

Included with every Shopify plan; main analytics features are available on any subscription, so there is no extra license, warehouse or consultant cost
Zero setup: data is native to the store, and Shopify describes the new analytics as real-time, versus pipelines and models to build for a custom warehouse
Prebuilt cohort analysis, predicted spend tier and RFM customer segmentation reports out of the box
Sidekick turns plain-English questions into ShopifyQL reports in the query editor (since Oct 2025), extended to payments and web performance data in Jan 2026
Five attribution models (last non-direct, last click, first click, any click, linear) in marketing reports, with ad spend, ROAS and CAC for ad platforms that send cost data to Shopify
Reporting and ShopifyQL work in the Shopify mobile app, plus home-screen metric widgets
Plus organization analytics combine several stores in one dashboard or ShopifyQL query with currency conversion

Who should pick which

Pick Shopify Analytics if

Nearly all of your revenue goes through your Shopify store.
Gross profit from unit cost is enough for your decisions.
You want real-time reports at no extra cost.

Pick a custom warehouse if

Amazon, TikTok Shop, wholesale, or retail are a real share of revenue.
You need margin after fees, shipping, refunds, and ad spend.
Finance needs numbers that reconcile to payouts and the books.

Recommendations by team

If you are	Pick	Why
Shopify-only brand	Shopify Analytics	Real-time, free, and improving every release.
Shopify Plus brand with several stores	Shopify Analytics	Cross-store dashboards are built into Plus.
Brand on Shopify, Amazon, and TikTok Shop	A custom warehouse	Every channel and its fees in one model.
Brand whose finance team reconciles revenue monthly	A custom warehouse	Revenue that ties to payouts and accounting.

Recent changes to Shopify Analytics

2026-01 Sidekick can query payments and web performance data and generate ShopifyQL for itsource
2025-10 Sidekick built into the analytics query editor to create reports from natural-language questionssource
2025-06 Redesigned analytics made the default for all stores: real-time data, custom dashboards, explorations, in-context ShopifyQL, mobile supportsource
2025-06 Live View, benchmarks and customer cohort analysis brought into the new analytics experiencesource
2024-05 Shopify acqui-hired the Peel Insights analytics teamsource

Questions people ask

Does a custom warehouse replace Shopify Analytics?

No. Teams keep using Shopify’s reports for day-to-day store questions. A warehouse adds what Shopify cannot see: other channels, fees, ad spend, and costs.

Can ShopifyQL replace SQL in a warehouse?

For store data, often. ShopifyQL is a commerce query language over Shopify’s own data. It cannot join Amazon, ad platform, or ERP data.

Which Shopify plans include analytics?

Shopify says its main analytics features come with every plan. Higher plans add more reports, and Plus adds cross-store analytics.

Sources and corrections

We checked these pages on the dates shown. Products change quickly. If you work at Shopify Analytics and something here is wrong or out of date, email linus@greyfielddata.com and we will fix it.