Ecommerce & profit

Break-Even ROAS Calculator

Find the revenue-to-ad-spend ratio that uses up an order's contribution after product, shipping, and transaction costs.

Use this before setting a ROAS target when you know order economics, rather than to measure a campaign's reported return.

Your inputs

Use one currency and a consistent period throughout. Currency results use your input currency, not a preset symbol. Enter decimals with a dot or comma, without thousands separators.

Order revenue (currency)

Net order revenue after discounts and refunds, excluding pass-through tax; must exceed the combined non-ad variable costs.

Product cost (currency)

Cost of the goods in this order, including landed purchase or production cost.

Shipping and fulfillment (currency)

Your shipping, packing, and fulfillment cost for the same order.

Fees and other variable costs (currency)

Payment and marketplace fees plus remaining per-order costs; do not include advertising.

Your result

Result for the default inputs

Break-even revenue per unit of ad spend

1.82x

Calculations run in this browser. Inputs are not sent to a server or added to a share link.

What the result means

A ROAS above this threshold leaves contribution after advertising; it does not by itself cover fixed overhead or a profit target. A zero or negative pre-ad contribution has no finite break-even ROAS.

The formula

Order revenue / (order revenue - product cost - shipping and fulfillment - fees and other variable costs)

Results are displayed to at most two decimal places. Calculations use the unrounded inputs.

A worked example

Put the formula to work

Order revenue (currency): 100
Product cost (currency): 30
Shipping and fulfillment (currency): 10
Fees and other variable costs (currency): 5

Break-even revenue per unit of ad spend: 1.82x

Revenue of 100 leaves 55 before ads. Spending that 55 gives a break-even ROAS of 100 / 55, approximately 1.82x.

How to use this calculator

Choose a representative order or a consistent order cohort.
Subtract goods, fulfillment, and all non-ad variable costs from its net revenue.
Divide revenue by the remaining contribution to find the advertising threshold.
Add headroom separately for overhead, uncertainty, and desired profit.

Why this number matters

A revenue multiple can look attractive while still losing money on fulfillment-heavy or low-margin orders. This threshold ties media targets to the economics of what is sold.

Input definitions

Order revenue (currency): Net order revenue after discounts and refunds, excluding pass-through tax; must exceed the combined non-ad variable costs.
Product cost (currency): Cost of the goods in this order, including landed purchase or production cost.
Shipping and fulfillment (currency): Your shipping, packing, and fulfillment cost for the same order.
Fees and other variable costs (currency): Payment and marketplace fees plus remaining per-order costs; do not include advertising.

Assumptions and limitations

Excludes fixed overhead and income tax unless explicitly allocated into costs; it is contribution break-even, not company break-even.
Uses one order's economics and does not credit future repeat purchases.
Attribution quality and incrementality are not established by this arithmetic.

Methodology

The default result and worked example use the same calculation functions as the interactive tool. The formula cannot verify the quality or scope of your source data.

Read our calculation methodology

Last updated September 7, 2026.