MarginReality

Beauty E-commerce Benchmarks

Typical benchmark ranges for online beauty stores. Figures are editorial estimates compiled from public research and practitioner experience — not formal citations or aggregated merchant data.

Want to know how these ranges are sourced and calculated? Read our methodology.

Beauty profit benchmarks — at a glance

Online beauty stores average a 60% gross margin and a 10% net margin, with a typical refund rate of 6% and customer acquisition cost of $32.

These are typical ranges compiled from public e-commerce research, company filings, and practitioner experience — not formal citations. See how these figures are calculated →

Why these numbers look like this

Beauty brands command some of the best gross margins in e-commerce at 60% average, but the 18% average ad cost — the highest in our dataset — reveals how heavily the industry relies on influencer partnerships and paid social to drive discovery. Subscription boxes and auto-replenish programs are the margin savers here, turning a single purchase into a lifetime relationship. The brands winning in beauty are the ones converting paid traffic into subscribers before the first product runs out.

At a Glance

60%

Avg gross margin

10%

Avg net margin

2.8x

Avg ROAS

$32

Avg CAC

$48

Avg order value

$210

Avg CLV

Profit Margin

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Gross margin50–70%(avg 60%)
Net margin7–13%(avg 10%)
COGS20–40%(avg 30%)
Return on ad spend2–4x(avg 2.8x)
Ad cost % of revenue12–25%(avg 18%)

Customer Acquisition

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CAC$20–$50(avg $32)
CLV:CAC ratio6.6:1 avg

Order Value

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Average order value$35–$75(avg $48)
Refund rate4–10%(avg 6%)

Lifetime Value

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Customer lifetime value$120–$380(avg $210)
Shipping cost %2–5%(avg 3%)

Compare your store to these benchmarks

Drop your Shopify Orders CSV into the CSV Profit Checker or use the Profit Calculator to see how your margins compare to the beauty industry average.

Read the full Beauty profit guide

Want the narrative breakdown behind these numbers? See our Beauty store profit margin guide for costs, seasonality, and margin-improvement tactics.

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