whatROI vs a spreadsheet
Free, yours, and good enough for a while. It struggles when fees change mid-year, refunds land in a later week, or one case cost covers forty cards.
Updated · A spreadsheet's prices and features read from their own site on September 23, 2026
The two products
A spreadsheet
Your own sheet, built from the CSV whatnot gives you. Most whatnot sellers use one.
- Price
- Free, or whatever you already pay for Excel or Google Sheets
- Free
- Nothing to expire or cancel.
whatROI
A profit and inventory tracker for whatnot live sellers, built around the show.
- Price
- $39 a month, or $390 a year
- Free
- Free plan: 4 shows a month with full detail and 2 lots. 14-day Pro trial, no card.
Where A spreadsheet is better
We make the other product, so their case comes first.
What A spreadsheet does better
Reasons to buy A spreadsheet instead, from their own page.
- Free, and it'll still open in ten years.
- Yours: no plan, no schema, no account to lose.
- Fine for two shows a month with items bought one at a time.
- Any shape you want. Every tool here makes choices a sheet leaves open.
What whatROI does that their page doesn't claim
Things we couldn't find on their site. If they've added one, tell us and we'll update this page.
- whatnot changed fees, shipping or refund rules on at least nine dates in 2026. A sheet is right only until the next change.
- Refunds post in a later week than the sale, so that week looks worse and the show looks better. whatROI puts each refund back on its show.
- A case cost split across what came out, including pieces sold three shows later.
- Profit per streamed hour, with no times to log by hand.
Which one to buy
- Buy A spreadsheet if
- You do a couple of shows a month, buy singles, and the sheet takes ten minutes on a Monday. Keep it, and read the guides.
- Buy whatROI if
- The Monday sheet takes longer than ten minutes now, or you've caught it being wrong.
Capability by capability
“Not stated” means A spreadsheet's own page doesn't mention it. The tool may still do it.
| Capability | A spreadsheet | whatROI |
|---|---|---|
| Profit per showA show is the unit of work. Monthly totals can't tell you which night paid. | Partly. Possible with a pivot table, if every row carries its show and you keep it up. | Yes. Each show gets its own profit and loss, with its orders, refunds and giveaways. |
| Profit per streamed hourTwo shows can net the same over very different hours. This number decides next week. | Partly. Only if you log start and end times by hand, every show. | Yes. Net profit divided by hours streamed, per show or across any range. |
| Cost of a case or lot, split across what came out of itThe half of profit whatnot's reports leave out. | Partly. A real allocation formula takes a day to build and breaks when a case spans two shows. | Yes. Enter a case, pallet or collection cost once. It's split evenly, by sale price, or as named hits with the rest pooled. |
| Fees rechecked against the published scheduleWorks out what each fee should have been, and flags the difference. | No. A sheet can total the fee column. Rechecking every order against a schedule that changed four times this year is beyond a formula. | Yes. Every order rechecked against whatnot's published schedule. Any charge above it is flagged. |
| Your commission tier, read from your own reportFrom September 21, 2026, commission depends on your four-week sales. whatnot doesn't print your tier. | No. Your tier moves with your four-week sales and appears in no column. | Yes. Read from the commission charged on your orders, per show. |
| Tax-ready exportSchedule C lines, or the VAT equivalent, ready to export. | Partly. You can build Schedule C lines yourself, once a year, from a sheet you trust. | Yes. Schedule C lines and a 1099-K bridge in the tax pack, plus CSV exports. |
| Works without linking your whatnot accountSome tools link your account through a browser extension. Others read the files whatnot gives you. | Yes. Nothing connects anywhere. | Yes. Reads the Weekly Orders Report and Show Report files. Nothing connects to your whatnot account. |
| Other marketplacesWhether it also covers eBay, Poshmark, Mercari and the rest. | Yes. Any marketplace you paste in. | No. whatnot only. |