What is net sales?

Net sales is the revenue you keep from selling products in a period after refunds and coupon discounts are taken out, not counting tax or shipping.

How WooCommerce calculates it

WooCommerce Analytics shows net sales on Analytics › Revenue as its own column, and it's the default number on most other reports, including Products, Categories and the Overview page. The formula is:

Net sales = gross sales − returns − coupons

Taxes and shipping are left out. Add them back and you get total sales. Two details often trip people up:

• Refunds are dated on the day you issue them, not the day of the original order. A refund in November lowers November's net sales.
• Orders with an excluded status (set under Analytics › Settings) don't count.

A worked example

Say in March you had $12,000 in gross sales. Customers redeemed $900 of coupons and you refunded $600.

• Net sales: $12,000 − $900 − $600 = $10,500

If the store also collected $1,050 in tax and $700 in shipping, total sales would be $12,250, but only $10,500 of it is product revenue.

Why it matters

Net sales is the cleanest view of what your products earned. Tax isn't yours, and shipping charges mostly pay a carrier, so leaving them out makes months easier to compare. It's also the base for average order value. The guide to net vs gross vs total sales goes through each column of the Revenue report.