How Much Do Dropshippers Make In 2021? How Soon Will You Make Money From Dropshipping?

16 min readMar 30, 2021

Money-related queries always top the list of the most frequently asked dropshipping questions. There is nothing surprising about it. None of us wants to engage in a demanding activity that ends up being unprofitable, right? We are all dreaming of lazy self-indulgent workless days on a warm calm seashore, and can’t wait for it to finally happen.

Still, questions like ‘how much money can I make drop shipping” are somewhat similar to ‘what’s the size of the Universe’… I mean, there is no way to answer them with a 100% accuracy.

Instead, in order not to make some disorienting assumptions (I really wouldn’t like to make any misleading promises), let’s consider the real-life experience of people who have already achieved some important business milestones. Everyone’s experience is precious, and there are lots of tiny tips and lifehacks we can learn from others.

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How much do dropshippers make with a newly launched store?

First of all, let’s speak about your possible income in case of starting a dropshipping business. You should understand that there are lots of factors that can influence your dropshipping journey. For example, a significant role is played by your location, the chosen niche, suppliers, products, and so on. It means that it’s difficult for us to talk about the average income of newly launched store owners. For this very reason, I suggest you to pay attention to some success stories of our latest clients, and you’ll have an opportunity to draw conclusions by yourself.Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

Story #1: Martin, New Zealand, made $295.59 in his first month

Meet one of our amazing clients whose name is Martin. He’s a sports coach from New Zealand, who has decided to go into dropshipping business. He started up his journey not long ago and has already achieved some results to boast. Today he owns only one online store and its total revenue in the first month of the store operation amounts to almost $300. Probably this sum is not very impressive, but the fact that Martin managed to make some profit during the very first month of his business existence without any relevant experience or background in the field is quite notable.Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

Story #2: Alex, Russia, made $223.79/month with one of his stores

We can take a look at one more dropshipping entrepreneurs. His name is Alex, and he is from Russia. His way of dropshipping is very interesting due to his education and previous experience. He has a Ph.D. in IT, and he tried to design his own software for running a dropshipping business. Unfortunately, he hadn’t succeeded until he decided to use our dropshipping solutions. To date, he owns nine online stores, and four of them are built with the AliDropship plugin. Showing one of his stores as an example, Alex says that he has 3–20 orders every day, and his gross sales for a monthly amount to more than $200. This sum doesn’t seem enormous, but, as an additional source of income, it’s still inspiring!Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

Story #3: Mihai, Spain, made its first sale of $40

The next entrepreneur I would like to talk about is Mihai. He is from Spain. Recently he opened two online stores using the solutions of AliDropship. Well, despite the fact that he only made one sale so far, he has a highly positive attitude. He is sure that the success is within reach because he knows it now from real-life experience how to promote his stores.

You might be wondering: what about the prospects of your dropshipping store? These newcomers’ stories are motivational, of course, but how does the business generally progress?Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

We cover this question a bit later in this article, but here are just a couple of stories to give you some idea on this.

Story #4: Otto, the Baltic states, made $13,087 in 1 month

Some of our clients started their dropshipping journeys several years ago and already shared the stories of their success with us several times. For example, this is Otto, and he lives in the Baltic states. The most interesting fact about his way is that he gave up his 9 to 5 job and decided to risk everything to start dropshipping. And what do you think about it? Yes, it paid him off. After he had launched the second online store, his revenues amounted to more than $13,000 per month. Fortunately, there is more to come.Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

Story #5: Moussdog, France, made $3,500 in 45 days

Now meet Moussdog. He is only 22 years old, and he lives in a small town in France. He doesn’t have a college degree, but he is fond of new technologies and entrepreneurship. In 2017 he got interested in the AliDropship plugin and decided to give it a try. After some time, his revenue amounted to $3,500. As it turned out to be, this guy was going to move far higher mountains.

If you want to know how these entrepreneurs operate right now, do not stop reading this article! The most exciting things are ahead!Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

How long should I wait until the first drop shipping sale?

Here, the answer is pretty simple: you shouldn’t wait at all.

When you run a newly launched store, it doesn’t have an established brand yet. So, the best strategy is to try out different marketing instruments and test everything to the best of your abilities.Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

Examples of dropshipping entrepreneurs achieving their first sale

For example, from this thread, we learn that it took the author about a week to achieve his first sale. Being an experienced Internet marketer with a solid background in building WordPress sites he did the following:

Picked the preferred promotional methods (AdWords and social media marketing);
Installed the Social Rabbit plugin to automatically manage social media marketing;
Connected Social Rabbit to the store’s Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Facebook pages;
Got several additional external plugins that, in his own personal experience, prove to be beneficial for website management;
Added and edited 3 times more products than he initially had;
Launched his first shoutout campaign;
Made several sitemap updates;
Launched his first AdWords campaign;
Made a conclusion on his pricing strategy and discounts policy;
Updated his product offer paying attention to their prices and SEO aspectUse coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

In this case, the store owner wasn’t making any marketing efforts for about a week. Then, advertising campaigns on Bing and Facebook were launched, and in a couple of weeks, the first dropshipping income appeared.

This forum contributor doesn’t specify how long the store has been in operation — still, it gets clear that one week of advertisements through Facebook fan page and the Instagram account was enough to generate the first sale ever.

And from this story, we can learn that the store owner concentrated on SEO in order to secure good business performance in the long run (don’t forget to take a look at our SEO checklist for dropshipping stores). It took about 2 months for the first sale to happen, and the poster mostly attributes this achievement to the successful use of the Social Rabbit plugin.

This store owner had to wait only four days for the first purchase at his online store. Can you imagine? Only four days! It’s nuts, really.Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

How much money do drop shippers make in general? What average drop shipping income can I expect?

And now, let’s talk about the prospects regarding your income.

It would surely be interesting to learn the average monthly dropshipping income worldwide. But, it would only be possible if every country obliged these entrepreneurs to officially submit their revenues.

So, instead of the officially collected data, we can only base our profit estimates on real-life stories.Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

This AliDropship forum contributor runs a general store aimed at buyers from the Philippines, the USA, and Brazil. His average daily amount of sales exceeds $3,000! And although his road to success was bumpy, he had the courage, confidence, and faith (and Google AdWords) to make it possible to achieve these incredible results.

Here is another story from, Redwall. He spent about a year learning as much about dropshipping as possible. In about 2 months, the income of his 2 stores reached $26,700! Facebook Ads did the magic!Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

Pirn from Estonia also used the AliDropship forum to share his success story, but our team got so impressed with his achievements that we asked him for a blog interview right away. It’s quite understandable: having no background experience, this EU drop shipper managed to achieve an average drop shipping income exceeding $10,000 per month!

Similar results can be seen in the store of Kitty who runs her business in New Zealand. Knowing nothing about dropshipping or eCommerce, she went from 0 to $45,800+ in 3 years of pursuing her passion!Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

The list goes on and on; if you’re curious, feel free to read the story of Rahul from India whose 4 stores went from 0 to $12,000 in 5 months, or the story of Martin from the Netherlands who made over €4,100 in 30 days, or the story of Yan from France who went from 0 to $1358.41 in 52 days despite zero experience — we’ve got plenty of such testimonials.

How much can drop shippers make with ready businesses?

So, we’ve just looked into the financial prospects of the owners of brand-new dropshipping businesses. But what about the entrepreneurs who buy already operating online stores? How are their expected profits different from the beginners’ ones? And are there any guarantees?Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

To begin with, if you’ve decided to purchase such store instead of getting a new one from scratch, look at the store stats carefully. Use this website valuation guide to see if the money-making potential of this store is up to your expectations. Considering the current profits, traffic numbers, and social media presence, you’ll be able to roughly estimate this store profitability in a medium-term period.

Next, remember that you, as the new store owner, is now responsible for its operation! Even if you’ve purchased a business with stable profit and traffic numbers, don’t expect them to magically hold up by themselves. It’s vital to keep promoting the store, communicating with current and prospective customers, and updating the product offer from time to time. This way, you’ll keep the store relevant and interesting to your target audience, and prevent the previous profit levels from decreasing.Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

The good news is, you can get yourself an already operating business that is optimized to make the new owners’ life easier and keep the profits steady! There is an exciting option you can benefit from: AliDropship Premium stores.

Premium dropshipping stores: $6,000+ monthly profit

Check out the amazing stores here! As you can see, each of them already has a stable profit level. The reason is simple: each of the stores operates in a highly demanded niche and is promoted by a skilled team of digital marketing specialists. That’s why the profits are so impressive!Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

You can easily become an owner of an equally successful business, too! All these websites are eligible for copying: you can get an exact copy of a top-class dropshipping website with the same structure, design, product range, etc. And what’s more, you can also purchase a marketing package — a set of the exact same advertising materials and audience settings that is currently used to generate profits in these stores. Clearly, it’s super helpful to new store owners who’d love to boost their revenues!

One of these premium stores, by the way, makes $500,000+ a month — isn’t that the number you’d love to achieve, too? Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

How to calculate your dropshipping profit?

The simple way to calculate your profits is to find the difference between your selling price and the price you purchased the item for. Additionally, you have to account for any overhead costs such as shipping, returns, online store maintenance, etc.

A good idea for a dropshipping store is to stick to low price products with high margin potential. Such items usually cost around $1-$20 and can be listed on an online store for a price of $20-$50 or even more.Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

The most successful dropshipping websites have shown us that the profit margin range is optimal. From our own experience, we recommend setting a profit margin of 40%-70%.

Here is the formula that works great for our dropshipping stores and can potentially work great for your business.Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

If you need more help, you can use our Dropshipping Profit Calculator to estimate your potential profit numbers.Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

What do your dropshipping profits depend on?

Let’s go over the factors that can influence your earnings from dropshipping business!

Niche choice
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If you haven’t tried our free dropshipping niche tool yet, it’s time to give it a shot! This instrument tells you if the niche is a good choice in terms of the number of products available, buyers’ interest, and promotional potential. The more demanded and product-rich the niche is, the sooner the first sale will happen.

Want to make your first sale happen sooner thanks to the hottest and most demanded items? Receive WEEKLY updates on the most popular items on the market — and get every week’s bestsellers imported to your store AUTOMATICALLY!

Payment gateways
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If you read the dropshipping journeys shared on our forum, you’ll quickly notice that the range and quantity of payment methods supported on your website have paramount importance. Quite often, people show interest in the product offers, but, due to the payment system’s inconvenience/unreliability, they leave the store before completing the order. Read this article to learn more about the best payment gateways you can use for your dropshipping store.Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

Moreover, no matter what payment processing service you are using, whether it’s PayPal, Stripe, etc., you need to pay processing fees. And each service has a different fee rate.

So, for example, Stripe obliges you to pay 2.9% of each transaction and a $0.30 surcharge.

Intensity of marketing efforts and advertisement costsUse coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!
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Well, this is obvious. It doesn’t matter if you are a marketing guru or you have never made a single sale, it makes no difference if you have developed multiple online stores or if you don’t know what a domain name is — as long as you are willing to push your business forward, none of this is relevant. Even with no market knowledge or industry experience, you can always start with understanding your target audience and trying simple, free ways to boost your store traffic. They cost you nothing, but they teach you a lot, and learning is essential for your business success.

As soon as your marketing budget starts allowing it, try paid advertising on Google, Facebook, and Instagram. They are the most popular promotional platforms among dropshipping entrepreneurs and they are essential for your business success.Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

With the help of various advertising instruments, you are more likely to attract potential customers much faster. However, by using them you’ll have to account for additional advertising expenses as well.

In dropshipping, you have to factor in how the shipping fee affects your final product price, and therefore, your profit. We’re covering the shipping price aspects in this article in detail — you’re welcome to take a look!

As an eCommerce entrepreneur, you must not forget the costs of other aspects of the business.

Such can be considered a purchase of software or applications, collaborations with influencers, taxes, etc.

These factors are the most common ones you should account for. And know, you have everything you need to estimate your potential profit.

How much do drop shippers make: summing it up

What conclusion can we draw from all these numbers?Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

Dropshipping puts no limits on your profitsUse coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!
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As you can see, each and every particular dropshipping store owner has a dramatically different level of income. Still, there is a striking similarity: all the owners are not constrained by any specific terms or requirements. They saw no limits on the amount of conducted sales, pricing markup, overall revenue, etc. Whatever the income amount is, it’s all yours. That’s exactly the thing that makes you highly motivated to keep developing the store, and aim higher.

It’s not necessary to have any experience in dropshipping or eCommerce
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When talking about the people who decided to go in for dropshipping, you may have noted that the majority of them had no experience in dropshipping at all. And despite this fact, they successfully operate in this kind of business. The experience in IT, digital marketing, or exactly in dropshipping, certainly, will greatly assist you when running this business. Nevertheless, let me assure you that using the AliDropship solution for dropshipping you can successfully launch a store and make it profitable even without background knowledge.

No obstacles are significant enough to put your dropshipping income at risk
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Life goes pretty fast, and lots of events can directly or indirectly influence your dropshipping business performance.

For example, Mousdog’s success story reveals that he has unknowingly launched his business during the Chinese New Year (the time when the majority of AliExpress sellers go on a vacation that can last for up to several weeks). Fortunately, he still managed to run his business with the maximum efficiency possible, thanks to the flexibility of dropshipping business model. With due preparation, your store will still make enough money no matter what the circumstances are: Chinese New Year, Black Friday, or your own vacation.Use coupon code NICHE10 to get 10% OFF a ready Custom store!

There is more to dropshipping business than just money
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This idea is expressed very clearly in Otto’s success story: on numerous occasions, he mentions that there is a huge difference between running your own store and working for somebody. In Otto’s opinion, the fear of having to work for someone else’s benefit is the most powerful motivator to run your own venture.

As you can see, the answer to the ‘how much do drop shippers make?’ question depends on multiple factors which you, fortunately, can control and regulate by your own efforts. The best part? However much you earn in your self-owned store, it’s all yours

DISCLAIMER: All the articles on this channel as a whole are for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary. The fact that I have made money from these websites does not mean that you too can make the same amount of money. You might make more or less, it all depends on experience, determination, and a lot of other things. It is very important for you to know that everything you do and get from this is at your own risk and depends on how much work you are willing to put in. Some of the links in videos on this channel are affiliate links, meaning that some of the purchasing made through the links will give us a commission, without any additional cost occurring to you