Free tool
What ROAS do you actually need?
Your margin sets the floor. Enter the unit economics once and compare the break-even number with the return you are getting.
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How the break-even number is built
Contribution per order is the price left after product cost, shipping, marketplace commission and any other per-order cost. Break-even ROAS is the price divided by that contribution: at this return, every ad dollar comes back as exactly one dollar of gross revenue after the costs that scale with the sale.
Break-even ACOS is the same fact expressed the other way round — contribution divided by price. A 4.0 break-even ROAS means a 25% break-even ACOS. The two numbers move together, so use whichever one your ad platform reports.
What it leaves out
Fixed costs (software, salaries, storage rent) and returns are not in the per-order contribution, so the break-even point here is the floor for a profitable order, not for the whole business. If returns run at 5%, either add the expected return cost to the unit costs or treat the result as optimistic.
Marketplace commission is applied to the selling price. If your platform charges commission on shipping too, add shipping to the price field and enter zero for the shipping cost.
How to use it before you raise bids
Run the calculator for your best-selling SKU and for a low-margin one. The gap between the two break-even ROAS values is the reason a single account-level target often loses money: the same ad return is profitable on one product and loss-making on another.
When the current ROAS is below break-even, the loss per order is shown directly. That number, not the percentage, is what a bid change has to recover.
Frequently asked questions
Is break-even ROAS the same as target ROAS?
No. Break-even is where profit is zero. A target ROAS should sit above it by whatever profit margin you want to keep.
Does the calculator include ad spend?
It uses the ROAS you enter to derive ad spend per order, so ad spend is the variable being tested rather than a fixed input.
What if contribution is zero or negative?
There is no break-even ROAS: no amount of ad return fixes a product that loses money before advertising. The calculator shows a very high floor to make that visible.
Does it work for services as well as products?
Yes. Set product cost to your delivery cost and shipping to zero; the arithmetic is the same.