Ecom CFO Notebook - Q1 revenue results: +3.5% median. One cohort is down 15%

Ecom CFO Notebook is a (mostly) strategic finance publication for $10M+ ecommerce operators.

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In January, I published the 2026 DTC Revenue Planning Guide.

The thesis was straightforward: don't forecast more than 10% revenue growth without a step-change lever. New channels, new geographies, hero product launches, retail expansion, acquisitions. Without one of those, growth above 10% is not coming from execution.

The more of you I spoke to last week, the more validated I’ve been in this thesis.

And today, I come with not just anecdotes but data.

I know the table below sucks to read on mobile, but this is my favorite new table and I’m trying to get you to care about finance.

So I’m putting my favorite new table first - net revenue growth by cohort by quarter for the last 5 quarters.

What the cohort data is showing

I’m very excited we have new tables, but I’m not as excited about what I’m seeing in the data.

The headline is that median net revenue across all the brands we track in Q1 2026 (through February) is up 3.5% versus the same period last year.

That's the overall number across all cohorts. The cohort breakdown looks like this:

• Under $10M: -14.7% on the median

• $10M–$50M: +14.3% on the median

• Over $50M: +50.1% on the median

Pretty rough to be small right now. The under $10M cohort is the only negative one, both median and mean, and it's not close as they're down 14.7% while the rest of the market is up.

The planning guide didn't differentiate by size, but the data is showing the smaller you are, the harder Q1 has been.

The $10M–$50M brands are mostly tracking what we said in the planning guide, which is plan for no more than 10% growth unless you have a step-change lever.

The cohort’s is up 14.3% on the median, but my guess is most of these brands are still down against their own forecast (despite some outliers pulling up the mean).

The over $50M cohort is up big, which deserves a closer look.

The story behind the $50M+ brands

Two brands in this cohort are successfully implementing step-change levers right now.

One is a beauty brand that got into two major retailers this year. Going from DTC to a national retail footprint is a different business (step change growth lever), not better execution.

The retail presence is also doing some halo work - the trust you've built in retail boosts DTC channels too.

The other is a consumer brand that's been doubling down on national TV shows like Good Morning America and Morning Joe. They're treating it as a real acquisition channel and not like a one-off PR placement.

Without those two moves, the cohort doesn't look as good. Which is exactly what the planning guide called out in January: revenue growth above 10% is not coming from doing what we did last year, but better.

It's coming from hero product launches, new channels, new geographies, retail expansion, acquisitions.

Not just better execution.

Unfortunately, it may be worse…

The brands in this data set have a dedicated CFO and accounting function. They actually know their numbers. They get reliable financials every month and they trust them.

That's not most ecommerce brands.

If we ran this same analysis on brands without a CFO and an accounting team, my guess is the picture is 10 to 15 percentage points worse.

Of course, that's an unknowable answer without the data, but knowing your numbers is an obvious leading indicator of being able to act on them.

Even with knowing — clean financials, real-time data, trusted reporting — the median brand in our dataset is up 3.5% on the year so far.

The end of easy mode indeed.

But Sam, this is just top line. What about profit?!?!

Fear not fellow finance people.

My new favorite tables are not without the complete data set including contribution margin, ROAS, and EBITDA.

I’ll be publishing the remaining metrics over the next couple weeks. We should also have all of March’s data loaded in soon.

— Sam

Looking for more? Some of our most popular posts:

1. 2026 Annual Benchmark Report: Key insights from financials across 30+ companies – including revenue growth, margins, ad spend, and more.

2. 2026 Revenue Planning Guide: Our report on macroeconomic indicators, Shopify GMV trends, and same-store revenue benchmarks to give operators a clear, data-backed outlook for 2026.

3. The issue with KPIs: Everyone has tons of data, but doesn’t know what to do with it. This is my take on managing the right metrics.

4. Responsibility Map: I walk through how to define who owns, participates in, and supervises every key finance & accounting deliverable

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