Feeling Scammed by AutoDS: My First Dropshipping Experience Turned Sour

So I just started my dropshipping journey, and my excitement quickly turned into frustration. I decided to use Shopify and integrate AutoDS to make the process smoother, but things didn’t go as planned.

Here’s what happened:

I tried listing an item that sells for $4.50 on AliExpress, but AutoDS charged me $7.50 for it. I understand markups happen, but you can't justify this much markup?

Forgot to mention I had to top up my account with a minimum $50 deposit, which came with a 5% processing fee. When I felt scammed and decided to stop and requested a refund, I discovered there’s a 15% refund transaction fee that I wasn’t clearly aware of until then. So they took another $6 as refund fee

After some back-and-forth emails, they clarified their terms and policies, but by then, I already felt like I’d been duped. I'm sharing this to warn others about these hidden fees. If you're just starting out like me, take a closer look at these platforms and their terms before committing your hard-earned money.

To the experienced dropshippers here: have you had better luck with other platforms or tools? I’d love some guidance there. (so for now I'll just place order manually on Aliexpress if i get any order comes)