Shopify’s native Sales by channel report is free on every plan and fine for a quick daily look, but refund rates, POS by location, and scheduled delivery need ShopifyQL or are not available. Data Studio (formerly Looker Studio) is flexible, but Google has no first-party Shopify connector, so a paid third-party one plus a custom dashboard build is required. Reporting apps like Report Pundit sit between the two with a pre-built Sales by Channel template covering refunds, share of revenue, POS by location, and scheduled delivery, no build needed, and can feed Data Studio through Google Sheets if an ad-spend dashboard is also in play. Rule of thumb: native for daily glances, Data Studio when blending Shopify with ad spend, Report Pundit for scheduled channel reporting to owners, finance, or an accountant.
Official answer
Shopify’s native Sales by channel report is fast and free but shallow. Data Studio (formerly Looker Studio) is flexible but needs a paid third-party Shopify connector and a custom dashboard build. A reporting app like Report Pundit sits between the two: a pre-built channel template with refunds, share of revenue, and scheduled delivery, with no build required.
Shopify native: fast, free, but basic
Shopify’s analytics are included on every plan, including Basic, and update in near real time. Analytics → Reports → Sales by channel splits net sales across Online Store, POS, Shop, Facebook & Instagram, and other connected channels.
The native report stops being enough when you need:
- Refund rates, fulfillment status, or POS sales by location, broken out by channel. These require ShopifyQL queries or are not available at all.
- Recurring delivery. Shopify Flow added a “Get analytics data” action in May 2026 that can run a ShopifyQL query on a schedule, but the query and the workflow are yours to build.
- Sharing with people outside the admin, like an accountant or a channel manager. Native reports are mostly manual CSV exports.
Data Studio (formerly Looker Studio): flexible, but a project
Google renamed Looker Studio back to Data Studio on April 11, 2026. Google does not ship a first-party Shopify connector, so a third-party one is required: Porter Metrics, Coupler.io, Supermetrics, Windsor.ai, and similar. Most are paid subscriptions with limited free tiers.
After connecting, the dashboard, calculated fields (including how “net sales” is defined), and reconciliation against Shopify are all built in-house. Shopify’s API rate limits can also slow down live dashboards.
Data Studio earns the effort when the goal is to sit Shopify channel revenue next to ad spend from Meta and Google in one dashboard, and someone on the team can maintain it.
Report Pundit: channel reporting without the build
Report Pundit’s Sales by Channel report is a pre-built template that takes a few minutes to set up:
- One table, every channel. Orders, gross and net sales, refunds, and each channel’s share of revenue in one view.
- Line-item accuracy. An order that is edited or exchanged across channels still credits the correct channel.
- Deeper filters. Break POS out by location, or filter by tag, collection, or vendor, using 2,000+ data fields.
- Scheduled delivery. Email, Google Sheets, or Google Drive, daily, weekly, or monthly. Also exports to Excel, CSV, or PDF.
- Conditional alerts. Get notified when a channel’s net sales drop by more than a set percentage week over week.
- Works on every Shopify plan, including Basic, and on Report Pundit’s free plan.
Already invested in Data Studio? Report Pundit can feed it. Schedule the Sales by Channel report to Google Sheets, then connect that sheet in Data Studio using Google’s free native Sheets connector. Channel data lands in the Data Studio dashboard without paying for a separate Shopify connector.
Side-by-side
| Capability | Shopify native | Data Studio + third-party connector | Report Pundit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | None | Hours (connector plus dashboard build) | Minutes, pre-built template |
| Cost | Included | Free tool plus paid connector | Free plan available |
| Channel totals | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Refunds and share of sales by channel | ShopifyQL required | Build it yourself | ✓ Built in |
| POS by location, filter by tag or vendor | Limited | Build it yourself | ✓ |
| Correct channel after edits or exchanges | × | Depends on connector | ✓ |
| Scheduled email or Sheets delivery | Flow plus ShopifyQL | Connector-dependent | ✓ |
| Blend ad spend with sales | × | ✓ | Via Sheets to Data Studio |
| Skills needed | Low | Medium to high | Low |
Which should you use?
- Quick daily check: Shopify’s native report is enough.
- Marketing dashboards that blend ad spend: Data Studio, with Report Pundit feeding Shopify channel data in through Google Sheets.
- Detailed channel reporting that arrives on schedule for owners, finance, or an accountant: Report Pundit.
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