Whatnot show performance: judge every livestream by revenue per hour, not revenue per show

The biggest show is not always the best show. A six-hour marathon that grosses $2,000 paid $333 an hour. A tight four-hour show that grossed $1,800 paid $450 an hour, and left you two more hours to list, pack and sleep. The Whatnot earnings report has everything needed to compare shows properly: LIVESTREAM_ID, LIVESTREAM_TITLE, and a timestamp on every order.

What “show performance” should mean for a Whatnot seller

Per show, six numbers tell the story:

• Revenue (sum of sale price) and items sold.
• Unique buyers: how many different people bought, not how many orders.
• Average order: revenue divided by orders. Auctions and $1 starts pull this down; curated drops pull it up.
• Duration: first sale to last sale.
• Revenue per hour and orders per hour: the numbers that make shows comparable.

Sort by revenue per hour and the ranking often changes. In the sample data, the top show by revenue per hour was a two-and-a-half-hour Sunday evening drop, not the longest show of the month.

Raid trains are their own category

Raid train shows bring a burst of new viewers and usually a lower average order. They deserve their own comparison: raid train against raid train, not against a solo drop. The title usually says “raid train”, and the earnings report keeps the title on every row, so they are easy to separate.

The long way: pivot the CSV by show

1. Stack the weekly earnings CSVs. Keep paid ORDER_EARNINGS rows.
2. Pivot by LIVESTREAM_ID (titles repeat; IDs do not): sum of POST_COUPON_PRICE, count of rows, count of distinct BUYER_NAME, min and max of ORDER_PLACED_AT_UTC.
3. Duration in hours = max minus min. Revenue per hour = revenue divided by duration.
4. One caveat: buy-it-now items on a preloaded show page are attributed to that show even when they sell hours before you go live, so the first timestamp can be early. If a show reads as nine hours and you were live for four, check the first few rows and trim to the live run.
5. Filter titles containing “raid” into their own tab.

The short way: the Shows tab

MARGN.PLUS lists every livestream in the selected range head to head: date, title, revenue, items, unique buyers, average order, duration, orders per hour and revenue per hour. Click any column header to sort every show, not just the visible page, and use the Raid trains only filter to compare like with like. Search by title to pull up one series of shows across months.

Combine it with the Day × Hour heatmap on the Trends tab and you can see both which shows earned the most per hour and which hours inside them did the work.

What to do with it

• Cut the slow last hour. If revenue per hour falls off a cliff after hour three, end at three and go again tomorrow.
• Repeat the format that pays per hour, not the one that felt biggest.
• Price raid trains for their audience. Lower average order is normal there; measure them on new unique buyers instead.
• Watch unique buyers per show. Revenue can rise while buyer count falls; that is a few regulars carrying the room, and it is worth knowing.

Upload one weekly report and the Shows tab ranks every show for you. Sort by revenue per hour first.

MARGN.PLUS is independent and not affiliated with Whatnot, Inc. Whatnot is a trademark of Whatnot, Inc.