Reading your store reports
How to use WooCommerce's built-in reports to understand your sales, revenue, and customer data.
- Difficulty
- Beginner
WooCommerce includes built-in reports that show you how your store is performing — what's selling, where revenue comes from, and how customers are behaving. This guide shows you where to find reports and what the numbers mean.
Quick summary
Go to Analytics → Overview in the left-hand menu to see your sales data. Analytics is its own top-level menu, not part of the WooCommerce menu. Key reports include Overview, Revenue, Orders and Products. The customer report sits separately under WooCommerce → Customers. Use the date range picker to compare periods and spot trends.
Where to find reports
Reporting lives under the top-level Analytics menu. The older WooCommerce → Reports screen still exists, but WooCommerce deprecated it with the release of WooCommerce 4.0 in March 2020, and it no longer receives updates. Use Analytics for anything you rely on.
The Analytics Overview
Go to Analytics → Overview. The dashboard is made up of three sections you can reorder, rename or hide:
- Performance — headline numbers for the period you picked, each with the change against the comparison period. The stats you can show include Total sales, Net sales, Orders, Average order value, Products sold, Returns, Total tax and Shipping.
- Charts — the same measures plotted over time, as a line or bar chart.
- Leaderboards — Top Customers by total spend, Top Coupons by number of orders, Top Categories by items sold, and Top Products by items sold.
To choose which stats appear in a section, open its customization menu (the three vertical dots) in the top right of the section title.
Use the date range picker at the top to change the period. The presets are Today, Yesterday, Week to Date, Last Week, Month to Date, Last Month, Quarter to Date and Last Year, plus a Custom tab for any other range. You can also compare the range you picked against the previous period or the same range a year earlier.
Key reports and what they show
| Report | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Revenue | Revenue over time, broken down into gross sales, returns, coupons, net sales, taxes, shipping and total sales |
| Orders | Number and value of orders, and average order value |
| Products | Which products sold most, and revenue by product |
| Variations | The same breakdown for individual variations of a variable product |
| Categories | Sales by product category |
| Coupons | How many times each coupon was used and its total discount value |
| Taxes | Tax collected per tax rate |
| Downloads | For digital products — download activity |
| Stock | Products filtered by out of stock, low stock, in stock or on backorder |
The customer report is not in this menu. Find it at WooCommerce → Customers.
Reading the Revenue report
The Revenue report is the most commonly used. Key terms, as WooCommerce calculates them:
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Gross sales | Sale price of the products multiplied by the quantity ordered. Does not include refunds, coupons, taxes or shipping |
| Returns | The value of products and services refunded to customers, whether in full or in part |
| Coupons | Total discount value of coupons redeemed |
| Net sales | Gross sales minus returns minus coupons |
| Taxes | Tax collected (this goes to the government, not you) |
| Shipping | Shipping charges associated with an order or refund |
| Total sales | Net sales plus taxes plus shipping |
Net sales is the number to watch
Gross sales looks big, but net sales — gross sales after subtracting returns and coupon discounts — is the closest thing to your real product income. Net sales does not include tax or shipping; those are reported in their own columns and are added back in to give total sales. Watch net sales for business planning, and remember the tax column is money you collect on someone else's behalf.
Exporting reports
You can export Analytics report tables as CSV files for use in spreadsheets:
- Use the Download link in the upper-right corner of the table header.
- If the data fits on one page, the file downloads straight away. If it spans several pages, WooCommerce prepares it in the background and emails a download link to the address on your WordPress account.
- CSV files open in Excel, Google Sheets, or Numbers.
Beyond WooCommerce's built-in reports
WooCommerce's built-in reports are good for basics. For deeper insight:
- Google Analytics (GA4) with e-commerce tracking — tracks where customers came from, how they browsed, and where they dropped off.
- Metorik — a third-party analytics and reporting service built for WooCommerce. Check their site for current features and pricing.
Ask us to set up e-commerce tracking in Google Analytics if it's not already configured.
Common questions
My sales numbers don't match my payment gateway dashboard. Why?
Analytics counts orders by status, and by default it excludes Pending payment, Cancelled and Failed orders while including Processing, On hold and Completed ones. It also dates revenue by the "Date paid" field by default. Your payment gateway shows actual transactions on its own timing. Small discrepancies are normal; large ones may indicate a configuration issue. Contact us if you're concerned.
How far back do reports go?
Analytics reports on the order and customer data it has imported, and you can select any custom date range. If your store had orders before Analytics was switched on, that history needs importing under Analytics → Settings. Very large date ranges can load slowly on high-volume stores.
Can I see which products are running low on stock?
Yes. Go to Analytics → Stock. You can filter it by out of stock, low stock, in stock or on backorder. You can also set low stock notifications and thresholds under WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Inventory.
Related guides
Need a hand?
Learn more
Last updated