Questions, answered.
Methodology, data and security, setup, integrations, and pricing. Still stuck? Talk to us.
How the numbers work.
What exactly is “contribution margin” in CM6?
Net revenue minus the direct, variable costs of trade for each order. Distinct from gross margin (which ignores fulfilment, payments, ads and service) and net profit (which includes fixed overhead and arrives too late to act on).
Why per-order and not just a monthly P&L?
Because a blended number can't tell you which orders, channels or SKUs to change. We compute at the order grain, then aggregate — so the result decomposes into the drivers behind it. See the CM6 Standard.
How do you handle shared costs like customer service or the Shopify subscription?
They're amortised across the orders in the relevant period, calibrated to your real volumes — not applied as an arbitrary flat percentage.
Are inferred costs (e.g. shipping) treated as facts?
No. Where a cost is estimated rather than observed, it's calibrated to your real data and clearly distinguishable from known costs.
Does contribution margin include or exclude marketing?
You choose. The default view shows contribution profit excluding marketing; a toggle layers ad spend back in at channel resolution, so you can see both product economics and fully-loaded acquisition economics.
Your data, your control.
Where does my data live?
In a CM6-managed Google BigQuery warehouse, in a dataset isolated to your store — never pooled with another brand’s data. You own your data: export your orders to CSV at any time, and uninstalling CM6 deletes your dataset outright. See our privacy policy.
What does CM6 store?
Your Shopify orders, order items, customers, products and variants, plus your configuration (cost structure, integration settings) and the enrichment outputs that power your dashboards — all in a dataset isolated to your store. Ad spend from Meta, Google and Bing is synced in via Fivetran. Full detail is in the privacy policy and DPA.
What Shopify permissions do you need?
Read access to the orders, customers and products needed to compute margin — nothing more. The exact scopes are shown for approval when you install the app.
Can we revoke access?
Yes, at any time — uninstall CM6 from Shopify and we delete your dataset outright, along with your stored configuration. Export your orders to CSV first if you want to keep them.
Getting connected.
How long does setup take?
The wizard captures your cost structure in under an hour; the rest is data backfill. Most brands are live within days. See the getting-started guide.
What do you connect to?
Shopify, BigQuery, Meta / Google / Bing Ads (via Fivetran), payment fee schedules (Klarna, PayPal, Shopify Payments), and Google Sheets for COGS. Full list on the integrations page.
Where do COGS come from?
A guided spreadsheet, or your Shopify unit costs — your choice. Both support a fallback hierarchy so coverage is complete. See setting up COGS.
We're on BigCommerce, not Shopify.
BigCommerce support is in early access. Get in touch and we'll let you know when your platform is ready.
Commercials.
How is pricing calculated?
It scales with monthly order volume and the breadth of cost layers and integrations you enable. We finalise pricing during your demo against your real order volume. See pricing.
Is there a free trial?
We run a short evaluation on your real data as part of every demo, so you see your true contribution margin before committing.
Who uses CM6 day to day?
Finance, marketing, and operations — from one shared view, so the whole leadership team works from the same numbers.
Does it replace my BI tool or Shopify analytics?
It's the contribution-profit layer they lack. CM6 complements top-line reporting rather than replacing it.