We know that it can be confusing when the ad spend numbers on ProfitTree don’t match what you see in your Etsy ads account. Let me walk you through why that happens and how we calculate things differently.

So, what’s going on here?

The main reason is that ProfitTree shows ad spend when it’s billed — meaning when the charge actually hits your Etsy account ledger. On the other hand, Etsy’s PPC dashboard shows ad spend in real time — when it’s actually spent, but not necessarily when you’re billed for it.

Why does ProfitTree do it this way?

We pull our numbers from one ultimate source of truth — your Etsy account ledger. This ledger shows when the money is actually charged to your account, which is the most concrete data we can use. You can find this in your Etsy account by going to Finances > Payment Account.

Now, when you look at real-time ad spend in Etsy, you're seeing the money as it’s spent. But, when Profit Tree shows it, we’re showing you the spend at the point when it’s billed. Unfortunately, there's a delay between when the ad spend happens and when it shows up in your ledger.

Why can’t we show real-time data?

Here’s the tricky part — Etsy’s API doesn’t give us a clear idea of how long that delay is between when the ad is clicked and when it’s billed. We think it’s around 24 hours, but since Etsy doesn’t confirm this, we don’t know for sure. If we tried to estimate for every user across different time zones, the numbers wouldn’t be accurate.

So, to give you the most reliable info, we stick to showing ad spend when it’s billed, because that’s the timestamp we know is accurate.

How can you compare?

If you want to compare our numbers to Etsy’s, the best way is to pull a report from your Etsy settings. This will show you every line item in your account ledger — and that’s the same info we base our numbers on.

Keep in mind, when you compare the metrics, Etsy often includes things like shipping, taxes, refunds, discounts, and those can make the numbers look different from what we’re showing.