Kaarobar vs. the spreadsheet you already have
This is the honest comparison, because it is the real one. Almost nobody chooses Kaarobar over a rival app; they choose it over a sheet that mostly works and takes a Sunday.
What the spreadsheet is genuinely better at
Starting with this because it is true and because a comparison page that pretends otherwise is not worth reading.
- It fits your business exactly. You built it around how you actually work. No software matches that on day one.
- It costs nothing and asks no permission. No install, no approval, no scopes.
- It answers a one-off question instantly. A new column beats a feature request every time.
- You trust it, because you can see every formula. That is a real advantage and it is why Kaarobar shows its own arithmetic line by line instead of presenting a total.
The four places it goes wrong without telling you
1. It is updated from the courier portal by hand, monthly
Which means the numbers are a month old when the decisions are made, and the reconciliation is done by comparing totals rather than parcels. A total that balances hides the parcels that do not.
2. Returns arrive late and cost twice
A sheet usually records the sale on the order date and the return whenever someone gets to it. In between, a returned order is counted as revenue, and the return freight is often never entered at all — so RTO, the largest cost in Pakistani COD, is the cost most likely to be missing.
3. Withholding is invisible
The 2% income and 2% sales tax withheld on delivered COD never appear on any document you type into a sheet. They are simply an amount that did not arrive. Most sheets never model them, and the profit line is 4% of delivered COD too high.
4. It has no idea which customer this is
A spreadsheet cannot tell you that this buyer refused two parcels last month under a slightly different spelling of their name. That is a per-order decision, and it is only available if customers are matched across phone, email and address.
| The job | Spreadsheet | Kaarobar |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per order and gross margin | Fine | Same, computed |
| Freight both ways, packaging, GST | Possible, if entered every time | Automatic |
| 2% + 2% withholding on delivered COD | Almost never modelled | Deducted and broken out |
| Remittance matched to the parcel | By total, by eye | Keyed on shipment ID |
| Returns counted when they arrive | Whenever someone types them | On warehouse scan |
| Repeat-RTO customer flags | Not possible | Before you ship |
| Booking, CN, loadsheet | In the courier portal | From the order |
| Fits your business precisely | Exactly | Configurable, not infinite |
| Cost | Free, plus your Sunday | Free to $39.99/mo |
When to stay on the sheet
If you ship a few dozen orders a month, your catalogue is small and you enjoy the visibility, stay. The sheet is not the bottleneck at that size and no app will pay for itself.
The sheet stops being cheap when reconciliation takes a full day a month, when you cannot say which product loses money after returns, or when you have found a courier payout short and had no way to prove which parcel. All three are the same underlying problem: a sheet stores totals, and these questions need per-parcel records.
Run one month both ways — install freeQuestions merchants actually ask
- Can I export back to Excel?
- Yes. Profit, tax and order data export to CSV and Excel, which is also what your accountant will ask for.
- Do I have to abandon my spreadsheet immediately?
- No, and the sensible move is not to. Run both for a month and compare the two profit figures. The gap is the answer, and it is usually made of return freight and withholding.