Break-even ROAS & max CPA calculator.
Enter your product price and costs to see the ROAS your ads must hit before they make money — and the most you can afford to pay for a conversion.
Your numbers
Adjust the values to match your product or average order.
Think payment fees, platform commission and returns — costs that scale with every order.
What your ads must achieve
Updated live as you type.
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30%Drag to choose how much of your gross profit each sale should keep after ad costs.
Estimates for orientation only — real results depend on your market, offer and creative.
What is break-even ROAS?
Break-even ROAS is the return on ad spend at which your advertising stops losing money. The formula is simple: break-even ROAS = selling price ÷ gross profit per order. If you sell a product for €80 with €39 of costs, your gross profit is €41 and your break-even ROAS is 80 ÷ 41 ≈ 2.0×. Any campaign returning less than 2.0× revenue per euro of ad spend is unprofitable, no matter how good it looks in the dashboard.
Your maximum CPA (cost per acquisition) is simply your gross profit per order — the most you can pay for a conversion before losing money on it. In practice you want a buffer: aiming to keep 20–40% of gross profit per sale gives you a realistic target CPA and target ROAS to steer campaigns by.
Knowing these two numbers before launching is what separates campaigns managed on conversions from campaigns managed on gut feeling. Already running ads? Use our ROAS & ad budget calculator to compare your actual performance against these targets.
Break-even questions, answered
Lower is better: a low break-even ROAS means you have margin to spare. Products with high gross margins, such as digital products and SaaS, often break even at 1.2–1.5×, while low-margin physical products can need 3× or more before ads turn a profit. Whatever your number is, your target ROAS should sit comfortably above it so every sale keeps profit.
Break-even ROAS is the floor — the return at which a campaign stops losing money. Target ROAS adds a profit buffer on top: if you want to keep 30% of gross profit per sale, your target ROAS is break-even ÷ (1 − 0.30). This calculator derives both, and the target is the number to steer campaigns by.
For a per-order break-even, only include costs that scale with each order: product, shipping, payment fees and returns. Fixed monthly costs such as agency fees are better judged at account level, as total gross profit from ads minus fixed fees. Both views matter — this calculator gives you the per-order economics.