Break-even ad spend
Find the most you can pay to acquire one sale before the product stops making money.
Ad room on one sale
Profit per sale
$2.87
More figures
- Maximum cost per sale
- $16.20
- Break-even ROAS
- 2.5
- Ad cost at your ROAS
- $13.33
At this ROAS, one sale leaves $2.87 after the ad. The sale breaks even at 2.5 ROAS.
Estimate from the numbers you enter. Not financial or tax advice.
Next calculation
ROAS is revenue divided by ad spend. A ROAS of 4 means four dollars of sales for each dollar of ads. That number is useless until you know the ROAS at which the sale itself stops making money.
This calculator finds the most one sale can spend on advertising after the product, the shipping you pay, and the fees. It then checks the ROAS you expect against that ceiling.
Break-even is not a target
Break-even ROAS is the point where profit is zero. A healthy campaign has to clear it by enough to pay you and to cover the ads that do not convert. If the break-even ROAS is 2, a campaign that reports 2.1 is only barely alive.
If the maximum cost per sale is zero or negative, the product loses money on the order form. No ROAS target repairs a price that does not cover the unit.
Use it before you scale
Put in the real shipped cost, not the supplier's product price alone. Then test the ROAS your last campaign actually produced. The profit per sale is the number to watch. A higher ROAS with no profit usually means the costs under the ad were left out.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good ROAS?
The useful comparison is your break-even ROAS, not a number copied from another store. A good ROAS is one that leaves profit after product, shipping, fees, and the ad.
Does this include returns?
Not by itself. If a share of orders come back, lower the selling price or raise the cost until the contribution matches what you keep. The batch planner can model returns across a whole order.
Should I use revenue ROAS or profit ROAS?
Ad platforms report revenue ROAS. Decisions should use the profit left after costs. This page converts one into the other for a single sale.
What if every campaign is below break-even?
Stop increasing the budget. Change the price, the cost, or the offer first. Spending more on a sale that loses money makes the loss larger.