Last updated: 2026. Verified against current Shopee, Lazada, and TikTok Shop seller-center fee structures. Commission rates change per category and tier — always cross-check against your own contract.

The honest truth about being a multi-platform online seller in the Philippines

You started selling on Shopee because that's where the buyers were. Then Lazada, because doubling your shelf doubles your orders. Then TikTok Shop, because that's where the algorithm started pushing volume. Now you have three seller centers open, three different payout schedules, three commission structures, and absolutely no idea — when you sit down on Sunday — whether you actually made money this week or just moved a lot of inventory.

Here's what most sellers miss: gross sales is not profit. A ₱500 order on Shopee doesn't mean ₱500 in your pocket. It means roughly ₱500 minus 5.94% commission, minus 2% payment fee, minus your cost of goods, minus the shipping you absorbed if it was a free-shipping voucher promo. On a ₱180-cost item selling for ₱500, you're not earning ₱320 — you're earning closer to ₱260. That's a 12% margin you didn't know you were giving away.

Multiply that by 200 orders a month across three platforms, and the gap between what you think you're earning and what you're actually earning is the difference between a thriving online store and a side hustle that's secretly losing money on the COD orders.

Step 1: Know what each platform actually charges you

The headline commission rate is rarely the full story. Here's what the typical PH seller pays in 2026 once everything is layered in:

Shopee


Lazada


TikTok Shop


If you're on all three platforms, you have at minimum nine different fee variables hitting your gross every month. Tracking them in your head is impossible.

Step 2: The real net profit formula

Here's the math you need to run on every single order:


Note that shipping fees collected from the customer are pass-through — the courier takes them, not you. They don't enter your profit calculation. The only shipping that matters for your P&L is the subsidy you absorb on free-shipping promos.

Step 3: The COD reconciliation trap

Here's the silent killer that hits sellers who do high COD volume: the platform doesn't always remit what they owe you.

It's not malicious. It's a combination of:


If you don't have an expected payout calculated separately and compared against the actual deposit, you'll never catch the gap. And by the time you notice — three months later, when you're closing your books — the platform's dispute window has closed and that money is gone.

The fix: every payout cycle, compare what the platform should have paid (Gross − Commission − Payment Fee, summed across the period) against what they actually deposited. If the variance is more than ₱5–10, file a dispute through Seller Center within 7 days.

Step 4: Inventory matters more than you think

Running out of your best-seller for 3 days during a Mega Sale doesn't just cost you that day's revenue — it kills your search ranking on Shopee and Lazada for the next 2 weeks. The algorithm penalizes "out of stock" listings.

You need a restock-at threshold per SKU. The rule of thumb: 2× your average daily sales × your supplier lead time, plus a safety buffer of ~30%. So if you sell 10 units a day and your supplier takes 5 days to ship, your restock-at threshold should be roughly (10 × 5 × 2) × 1.3 = 130 units.

Step 5: Track everything in one place, or you will lose money

Here's the seller trap: at month-end, you can't remember which orders were COD versus prepaid, you've lost track of which voucher campaigns ate your margin, your inventory spreadsheet from January is wildly out of sync with reality, and you have no idea which 3 SKUs are actually carrying the business and which 20 are dead weight.

The fix is unsexy: log every order as it happens, in one place, with formulas that connect.

The shortcut: use the workbook we built

You can build all this in a blank spreadsheet. We did, for years. But you'll spend two weekends building the formulas, get the multi-platform commission lookup wrong on the first try, forget to handle the COD vs prepaid split, and miss the reconciliation logic entirely.

So we built the workbook we wished existed when we started selling across multiple platforms. 6 sheets, all formulas connected, no add-ins, works offline in Excel or Google Sheets.


One-time payment: ₱299. No subscription. No login. Yours forever.

Frequently asked

Will this work if I'm only on one platform?

Yes — just leave the other platforms blank. The Per-Platform breakdown will show ₱0 for the unused ones, and the Order Log dropdown still works exactly the same.

Do I need to know spreadsheet formulas?

No. Every formula is already written. You only enter dates, order IDs, SKUs, gross, and platform — the workbook computes commission, payment fee, COGS, and net profit for you.

What if my commission rate is different from the default 5.94%?

Open the Settings sheet and overwrite the rate. The Order Log recalculates immediately. You can do the same for payment fee and shipping defaults.

Does this handle returns and refunds?

For returns, log the return as a negative-quantity order on a separate row, with the same SKU and a note. Net profit on that row will be negative, which correctly offsets the original sale on your Dashboard. (For sellers with very high return rates, we recommend a dedicated Returns sheet — that's on the roadmap.)

Will this work in Google Sheets or only Excel?

Both. The formulas use standard functions (SUMIFS, COUNTIFS, INDEX/MATCH, IFERROR) that work identically in Excel 2019+, Microsoft 365, and Google Sheets. Conditional formatting carries over too.

Does this file my taxes?

No — it tracks order-level profit so you know what you actually earned. For BIR filing, look at our Freelancer BIR Tax Tracker which handles 1701Q and 1701A computations.

Get the workbook

Download the Online Seller Order Tracker — ₱299

Instant download via email. PayMongo checkout (GCash, Maya, QR Ph, card). 7-day download link.