Skip to main content
Metrics type: Supporting MetricsCategory: Ecommerce Platform

At a glance

Split between paid-shipping and free-shipping orders, both as count and as revenue. Adobe Commerce stores commonly run free-shipping thresholds (free shipping over £50, free 2-day for B2B accounts, free shipping campaigns); the card surfaces how much volume falls in each bucket and whether the threshold is creating the intended basket-size lift.

Calculation

Calculated automatically from your Adobe Commerce data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.

Worked example

A homewares brand on Adobe Commerce 2.4.6, US/UK/B2B Store Views. Free-shipping threshold: UK £50, US $75, B2B always free. 30-day window ending Monday 4 May 26. Free vs paid split: Revenue contribution: What this is telling operations:
  1. 77% of orders qualify for free shipping across consumer Store Views; 100% for B2B. Total order count classifies free.
  2. Free-shipping orders have ~2x higher median basket than paid-shipping orders (112vs112 vs 54 US). This is the threshold-driven basket-build behaviour: customers consciously add items to cross the threshold.
  3. The 30% paid-shipping consumer cohort tends to be small-basket emergency orders ($54 US median is 30% below the threshold). They’re price-insensitive in this purchase context.
  4. B2B is universal free shipping because freight is contractually included; the merchant absorbs freight cost as a B2B-margin item.
  5. Cross-checking Total Shipping: shipping revenue $127,800 over 30 days. If shipping margin is positive (the merchant charges more than carrier cost on paid-shipping orders), this is contribution. If margin is neutral or negative (the threshold creates net subsidy), the threshold is a marketing cost.
  6. Strategic question: would lowering the US threshold from 75to75 to 65 lift free-shipping share from 70% to 80%? Industry data suggests yes; the trade-off is the merchant subsidises shipping on more orders. Modeling: if 10% additional orders qualify for free, the merchant absorbs ~$8 each for those orders. Worth testing at small scale.

Sibling cards merchants should reference together

Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in Adobe Commerce Admin:
Reports > Sales > Shipping aggregates shipping revenue by carrier and method. Filter to free shipping methods to see the count.
Stores > Configuration > Sales > Shipping Methods lists configured methods including the free-shipping rule.
Marketing > Cart Price Rules shows free-shipping cart rules with their qualification conditions.
Sales > Orders with shipping-method filter for individual order verification.
Why our number may legitimately differ from Admin: Cross-connector reconciliation (when these connectors are connected for this merchant):

Known limitations / merchant FAQs

My free-shipping threshold is $50 but the card shows free orders at lower baskets, why? Most likely a free-shipping coupon code is in use (separate from the threshold rule). Customers below threshold can still get free shipping via promo. Cross-check applied cart rule names per order. Adobe Commerce vs Magento Open Source: difference? None at the calculation. The card runs identically. My multi-store, can I see per-Store-View thresholds? Yes, configure per-Store-View variants. Strongly recommended because thresholds typically differ by region (UK £50 vs US $75 vs EU €60 are common). B2B always free, so why is it in this card? Because operationally the merchant pays freight on B2B orders too; the card surfaces total absorbed-shipping cost which feeds B2B margin analysis. Why does free-shipping basket median look higher than paid? Threshold-driven basket build: customers add items consciously to cross the free-shipping threshold. Industry data shows 30 to 60% basket-size lift around free-shipping thresholds. The card confirms it on your specific data. A flash sale gave free shipping to all orders, are those classified as free? Yes; the card uses shipping_amount. If the rule zeroed it, free is the classification. Why exclude canceled? A cancelled order isn’t fulfilled; the shipping classification is moot. For full intent analysis (was the customer attracted by free shipping even though they cancelled?), use the order-level data manually. My multi-currency, are basket medians comparable? The card surfaces per-Store-View medians in native currency for clarity. The cross-currency comparison uses base_grand_total for the revenue roll-up, but the basket-median view stays per-currency to avoid FX confusion.

Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Free vs Paid Shipping is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Adobe Commerce and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. Start for free or book a demo to see this metric running on your own data.