Break-Even ROAS Calculator: Free, No Signup

Find the exact return on ad spend (ROAS) at which your ads pay for themselves. Enter your selling price and costs to see your break-even ROAS, contribution margin, and how much you can spend to acquire a customer.

How to use this calculator

Enter your selling price per unit. This is the revenue you collect on one sale before any costs.
Enter your cost of goods sold (COGS) per unit, which is what each item costs you to make or buy.
Add any other variable costs per unit, such as shipping, payment processing fees, and packaging.
Optionally enter a target profit margin you want to keep after ad spend.
Read your break-even ROAS, contribution margin, break-even cost per acquisition, and the target ROAS for your desired margin.

How it works

Break-even ROAS is the return on ad spend at which the revenue from your ads exactly covers your costs, leaving zero profit and zero loss. ROAS itself is revenue from ads divided by ad spend, so a ROAS of 1.0x means each ad dollar brings back one dollar of revenue.

The calculator first adds your cost of goods sold to your other variable costs to get the total variable cost of one sale. It subtracts that total from your selling price to find your gross profit per unit. Your contribution margin is that gross profit divided by the selling price.

Break-even ROAS is the inverse of that margin:

break-even ROAS = 1 / contribution margin = selling price / gross profit

So a 40 percent margin breaks even at 2.5x, and a 25 percent margin needs 4.0x. At the break-even ROAS, your ads bring in just enough revenue to pay for the product and the ads, so you neither gain nor lose money. Any ROAS above that line is profitable, and anything below it loses money. This identity is documented by Corporate Finance Institute, Google Ads Help, Saras Analytics, Flighted, and Triple Whale.

Your gross profit per unit is also the most you can spend to acquire one customer and still break even, which is your break-even cost per acquisition (CPA). If you supply a target profit margin, the calculator returns the higher ROAS you need so that profit is left over after ad spend.

One important limit: if your costs meet or exceed your selling price, your gross profit is zero or negative and you lose money on every unit before you spend a cent on ads. In that case there is no break-even ROAS, so the tool shows an explanatory message instead of a number. Your selling price must also be greater than zero.

Examples

If you sell a product for $50 with $15 COGS and $5 in other costs, the tool returns a 1.67x break-even ROAS because your gross profit is $30, your contribution margin is 60 percent, and 1 divided by 0.60 is about 1.67. You can spend up to $30 to acquire each customer.

If you sell a thin-margin product for $30 with $18 COGS and $4 in other costs, the tool returns a 3.75x break-even ROAS because your gross profit is only $8, giving a 26.7 percent margin, and a thin margin forces a higher ROAS to cover costs.

If you take the $50 product above and ask to keep a 15 percent profit margin, the break-even ROAS stays 1.67x, but the tool also returns a 2.22x target ROAS because you need 1 divided by (0.60 minus 0.15) to leave 15 percent profit after ad spend.

What this tool does that others don’t

It flags the impossible case where your costs meet or exceed your selling price. Many calculators silently divide by zero or show a misleading number; this tool returns a clear message that break-even ROAS does not exist.
It gives other variable costs their own field, so you can add shipping, payment fees, and packaging instead of folding everything into one product cost. Following the broader definition from Saras Analytics and Flighted, your break-even ROAS will be more accurate than tools that subtract COGS alone.
It shows the supporting numbers, not just the ROAS. You also see your contribution margin, break-even cost per acquisition, and break-even ad cost as a percent of revenue, so you can sanity-check the result.
It converts break-even ROAS into a profitable target ROAS. Enter the margin you want to keep, and the tool returns the ROAS you need with a worked formula.

Frequently asked questions

What is break-even ROAS?

Break-even ROAS (sometimes written BEROAS) is the return on ad spend at which the revenue your ads generate exactly covers your product and ad costs, so you make zero profit and zero loss. Any ROAS above it is profitable; anything below it loses money.

How do you calculate break-even ROAS?

Divide your selling price by your gross profit per unit, where gross profit is selling price minus all variable costs (COGS plus shipping, fees, and packaging). Equivalently, break-even ROAS equals 1 divided by your contribution margin.

Why does a lower margin mean a higher break-even ROAS?

Because break-even ROAS is the inverse of your margin. A thin margin leaves little room for ad spend, so your ads have to return more revenue per dollar to cover costs. A 50 percent margin breaks even at 2.0x, while a 20 percent margin needs 5.0x.

What costs should I include?

Include every variable cost tied to one sale: cost of goods sold, shipping or fulfillment, payment processing fees (often around 2.9 percent plus a fixed fee), and packaging. Leave out fixed overhead like rent or salaries, since break-even ROAS measures per-unit contribution.

What is a good ROAS?

There is no universal number. A good ROAS is comfortably above your break-even ROAS. If you break even at 2.0x, then a 3.0x or 4.0x ROAS leaves healthy profit, while a 1.5x ROAS would lose money even though it sounds positive.

What is break-even cost per acquisition?

It is the most you can spend on ads to acquire one customer and still break even, which equals your gross profit per unit. If you keep $30 of profit on a $50 product, you can spend up to $30 acquiring each customer before you start losing money.

How do I turn break-even ROAS into a target ROAS?

Decide what profit margin you want to keep after advertising and enter it as the target margin. The calculator returns the higher ROAS needed to leave that margin, computed as 1 divided by (contribution margin minus your target margin).

What happens if my costs are higher than my selling price?

Then you lose money on every unit before spending a cent on ads, your margin is zero or negative, and a break-even ROAS does not exist. The calculator flags this case instead of showing a number, signaling that you need to raise your price or cut costs.

Is break-even ROAS the same as ROAS?

No. ROAS is the actual revenue you earn per dollar of ad spend. Break-even ROAS is the threshold ROAS you must beat to be profitable. You compare your real ROAS against your break-even ROAS to know if a campaign makes money.

How is ROAS different from ACOS?

ACOS (advertising cost of sale) is the inverse of ROAS expressed as a percentage: ACOS equals ad spend divided by revenue. Your break-even ad cost as a percent of revenue, shown by this tool, is essentially your break-even ACOS.

Break-Even ROAS Calculator

Your break-even ROAS