Data Export vs Better Reports: Which Shopify Reporting App Is Right for Your Store?

Data Export costs less on every Shopify plan, and the gap grows fast as your store does. Both apps list the same features on every plan, and Better Reports' listing states no usage limits, so we could not find what the extra cost buys at the Advanced and Plus levels.

Shopify plan	Data Export	Better Reports	Yearly difference
Basic	Data Export$12/month	Better Reports$19.90/month	Yearly difference$94.80
Grow	Data Export$25/month	Better Reports$39.90/month	Yearly difference$178.80
Advanced	Data Export$35/month	Better Reports$149.90/month	Yearly difference$1,378.80
Plus	Data Export$50/month	Better Reports$299.90/month	Yearly difference$2,998.80

The yearly difference is what you save with Data Export at monthly rates. A Plus store pays six times as much for Better Reports. If a higher price buys you something specific, such as team workspaces or an extra data source, weigh that against the numbers above.

Data Export schedules reports hourly, daily, weekly or monthly, lets you set a time of day and a date range such as last 7 days or previous month, and delivers to email, Google Sheets, Google Drive, FTP or SFTP. That suits a nightly file for an accountant, a warehouse or a vendor, and an hourly run helps when a team needs fresh numbers during a sale.

Better Reports schedules reports daily, weekly or monthly and sends them to an email inbox or to Google Sheets. Its listing also names Google Drive as an integration, but it does not list FTP or SFTP delivery. If email and Google Sheets cover your workflow, that is enough. If a system on the other end expects a file on a server, Data Export has the delivery options.

Data Export exports CSV, Excel, Google Sheets, JSON and TXT. Better Reports exports CSV, Excel, Google Sheets and PDF, and its website adds HTML. Need a PDF to attach to an email or an HTML report to share? Better Reports has them. Need JSON or TXT for an accounting tool or custom integration? Those come from Data Export.

Both apps go beyond pre-built reports. In Data Export, you build a report from any field in the Shopify store API, including metafields, line item properties and note attributes. Calculated fields add values Shopify does not provide, such as profit, margins and fees. Every plan includes free custom report setup, so you can send a request and let the team build and schedule the report.

Better Reports offers a visual builder with pivot tables and charts, and its own query language, BRQL, for custom metrics that you create once and reuse across reports. Its listing also names a free custom report service on every plan. If you like building reports visually, that builder is a real strength.

This is where Better Reports pulls ahead. Its website describes separate workspaces for each team with granular member permissions, and its listing mentions multi-store reporting, POS support and a Stripe integration. The website also advertises connectors for 500+ apps, such as Stripe and Help Scout. If you want your Shopify data and data from other tools in one place, check that the connectors you need exist before you decide.

Data Export focuses on Shopify store data and gets it to where your team works, with hourly schedules and delivery to Google Drive, FTP and SFTP.

Data Export is ISO certified and deletes your store data within 48 hours of uninstall. Whichever app you pick, ask any reporting vendor the same two questions, because it will read your orders and customers: which security standards does it hold, and how fast does it delete your data after you uninstall? For Better Reports, we could not find information about security certifications or data deletion after uninstall on its public pages.