ROAS Calculator
Return on ad spend - revenue per dollar of ad cost. Returns ROAS as both ratio and percentage, plus breakeven ROAS based on your gross margin.
About the ROAS Calculator
The ROAS Calculator answers the single most important question in paid advertising: are these ads making money? It returns return on ad spend as both a ratio (4.5x) and a percentage (450%), plus the breakeven ROAS your gross margin requires. Below breakeven, every dollar of ad spend loses money - no matter how impressive the absolute revenue looks.
Breakeven ROAS is 1 ÷ gross margin. A 25% margin business needs 4x ROAS just to cover the cost of goods sold; a 75% margin SaaS business breaks even at 1.33x. The calculator flags whether your current ROAS is creating profit or burning cash, and shows the margin between current and breakeven - your "ROAS cushion" before campaigns turn unprofitable.
Common use cases
- Validate whether a paid campaign is actually profitable, not just busy
- Set realistic ROAS targets aligned with your specific gross margin
- Communicate ad performance to non-marketers using profit, not revenue
- Decide when to scale spend (marginal ROAS still profitable) vs cap it
Tips for accurate results
Watch marginal ROAS, not blended ROAS, when deciding whether to scale spend. Blended ROAS averages your high-performing best audiences with the marginal weaker ones. Scaling spend usually means buying more of the weaker audiences - so blended ROAS holds up while incremental ROAS quietly drops below breakeven. The calculator's "next $1,000" view models this directly.
Privacy & data handling
The ROAS Calculator runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is uploaded, logged, or shared with third parties - the math happens locally and your inputs disappear when you close the tab. There is no signup, no email collection, and no daily-use limit.
What is ROAS and how is it different from ROI?
ROAS is revenue ÷ ad spend, so a $10,000 spend that drives $40,000 in revenue is 4x ROAS. ROI is profit ÷ ad spend (and profit subtracts cost of goods, fulfillment, etc.). A 4x ROAS on a high-margin SaaS product is wildly profitable; a 4x ROAS on a low-margin retail product can still lose money.
What is breakeven ROAS?
Breakeven ROAS = 1 ÷ gross margin. For 25% gross margin, breakeven is 4x - you need $4 of revenue per $1 of ad spend just to cover costs. Below breakeven you're paying to lose money. Most retailers target 2-3x above breakeven; SaaS targets are typically lower because margins are higher.
Is 3x ROAS good?
Depends on your gross margin and growth strategy. At 75% gross margin (typical SaaS), 3x ROAS is profitable. At 25% margin (typical retail), 3x is below breakeven. The calculator shows your ROAS-to-margin relationship and flags whether the campaign is gaining or losing money on each marginal sale.
How does attribution affect ROAS?
Massively. Last-click attribution credits all revenue to the final touch, inflating ROAS on retargeting and search. Multi-touch attribution spreads credit across touchpoints, often dropping reported ROAS by 30-50% on top-of-funnel channels. Match attribution model to decision: bottom-funnel can use last-click; budget allocation should use multi-touch or incrementality testing.
When should I scale ad spend?
When marginal ROAS stays above breakeven - that is, the last incremental $1,000 of spend still generates more revenue than it costs. Most ad platforms degrade as you scale (you run out of cheap audience), so watch the ROAS curve, not just blended ROAS, to know when to stop adding budget.
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