An AOV calculator divides your revenue by the number of orders that produced it.
If you took $48,600 from 1,200 orders, your average order value is $48,600 / 1,200 = $40.50. Enter revenue and order count for the same period, and the calculator gives you the average amount a customer spends per order.
How to calculate average order value
The formula is short:
AOV = revenue / number of orders
Both numbers must cover the same date range, the same store, and the same currency.
The hard part is deciding what counts as "revenue," because every platform defines it a little differently.
Shopify, for example, changed its AOV definition in January 2023 to "gross sales minus discounts," excluding any adjustments made after the order was created.
Your analytics tool or ad platform may count shipping, tax, or refunds in a different way, so the same store can show two different AOVs.
| Input | What to enter | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | Sales in the period, after discounts | Pick one rule for shipping, tax and refunds, and keep it |
| Orders | Number of completed orders in the same period | Count orders, not customers or sessions |
Using the average order value calculator
A worked example
Say your store had 30,000 sessions last month, 1,200 orders, and $48,600 in sales after discounts.
- AOV = $48,600 / 1,200 = $40.50
- Conversion rate = 1,200 / 30,000 = 4.0%
- Revenue per visitor = $48,600 / 30,000 = $1.62, which also equals 4.0% x $40.50
That last line is the reason AOV matters.
Revenue per visitor is conversion rate multiplied by AOV, so a lift in either one raises revenue, as long as the other doesn't fall by more.
You can check the other two numbers with our conversion rate calculator and revenue per visitor calculator.
How to read the result
On its own, an AOV figure tells you little.
Compare it with your own past months, with the same season last year, and with stores like yours in our average order value benchmarks.
Then look at what changed it. A new upsell, a higher free shipping threshold, or a price increase can all raise AOV.
A sale that pulls in many small first orders can lower it, even in a good month.
What real tests show
AOV changes in A/B tests are often small, and the best ones don't cost you conversions.
GrowthRock added a one-click leather care kit to a furniture store's cart and raised AOV by $55 over 41 days and 4,000+ transactions, though only at 92% significance.
Visually reported that raising Faherty's free shipping threshold from $100 to $150 lifted AOV 2.9% with no conversion impact, and that a new cart upsell at Canopy raised AOV 6.2% and revenue per session 9.2%.
Both are vendor case studies without published sample sizes.
GrowthRock
VisuallyVisually
Clean CommitClean CommitClean CommitFor more tactics with evidence behind them, see how to increase average order value, or browse upsell tests and free shipping threshold tests.
Common mistakes
- Judging a test on AOV alone. In a Clean Commit test, a decluttered cart page raised AOV 14.8% but cut conversion 11.1%. A free shipping progress bar in the mini cart raised AOV 9.2% while conversion fell 5.9%. Use revenue per visitor as the deciding metric.
- Letting a few large orders decide. AOV is a mean, so one bulk order can move it a lot in a small sample. When Clean Commit added same-category recommendations to product pages, AOV rose 19.7% while conversion fell 9.9% on 9,093 visitors, and the desktop jump was likely a few large orders. Check the median order value too, or cap extreme orders before you compare.
- Dividing by customers or sessions. Revenue per customer and revenue per visitor are useful, but they aren't AOV.
- Changing the revenue rule mid-stream. If one month includes shipping and the next doesn't, the "change" is just bookkeeping.
- Mixing currencies or channels. Convert to one currency first, and keep wholesale or B2B orders separate from retail.
- Calling a winner too early. Order values vary much more than conversion does, so AOV tests need large samples. Run the numbers through the A/B test significance calculator before you ship.
To see where AOV fits among your other store metrics, read our guide to the conversion funnel, or search every result in the test database.