adlicio.

Know the ROAS you need to turn a profit.

Enter your price, product cost, and fees to get your break-even ROAS, CPA, and margin in seconds. Free, no signup.

Enter your unit economics

Updates as you type. Blank fields count as zero.

Break-even ROAS

1.67x= $100.00 price ÷ $60.00 profit per order

Revenue you need per $1 of ad spend to break even.

Break-even CPAMost you can pay per order to break even.
$60.00
Profit margin %Gross profit as a share of price.
60%
Gross profit per orderPrice minus product cost minus fees.
$60.00
Target ROAS for 20% marginROAS to clear your target margin.
2.5x

You know the ROAS you need to be profitable. The lever that actually moves it is the creative angle.

Adlicio finds that angle in your customers' real words. It scrapes comments and reviews from Reddit, YouTube, Amazon and more, then ranks them into the angles, objections, and hooks that move ROAS the most.

Try Adlicio freeSee how it scrapes Reddit
01How it works

How to find break-even ROAS

  1. 01

    Enter unit economics

    Add the selling price, product cost and other variable cost for one order.

  2. 02

    Set a target margin

    Optionally enter the profit margin you want to keep after ad spend.

  3. 03

    Read the thresholds

    Use the break-even ROAS, CPA and target ROAS to judge campaign results.

02Field guide

What break-even ROAS is, and how to use it

Break-even ROAS is the return on ad spend where your revenue exactly covers your costs. Hit it and you make zero profit. Beat it and every extra dollar of return is profit. Fall short and you are paying to lose money. It is set entirely by your unit economics, your price, your product cost, and your variable fees, not by how much you spend.

The math is simple. Your gross profit per order is the selling price minus product cost minus other variable costs. Your break-even ROAS is the price divided by that gross profit, and your break-even CPA is the gross profit itself, the most you can pay to acquire one order without losing money. A $100 order with $40 of cost has $60 of profit, a 1.67x break-even ROAS, and a $60 break-even CPA.

Use it to read your ad reports honestly. A 2x ROAS looks great until you learn your break-even is 2.5x. Add a target margin above and the calculator returns the exact ROAS you need to clear it, so you set a real target instead of a guess.

The number tells you the bar. Clearing it is a creative problem. The fastest way to lift ROAS is a sharper angle, and the sharpest angles come from scraping what your customers actually say.

03FAQ

Break-even ROAS calculator FAQ

What is break-even ROAS?

Break-even ROAS is the return on ad spend at which your ad revenue exactly covers your costs, so you make zero profit and zero loss on those orders. Above it you profit, below it you lose money. It depends only on your margins, not on how much you spend. If a product has thin margins you need a high break-even ROAS, and if it has fat margins you can break even at a much lower one.

How do you calculate break-even ROAS?

Break-even ROAS equals your selling price divided by your gross profit per order, where gross profit is price minus product cost minus other variable costs like shipping and fees. For example, a $100 order with $40 of total variable cost has $60 of gross profit, so the break-even ROAS is 100 divided by 60, or about 1.67x. That means every dollar of ad spend must bring back at least $1.67 in revenue.

What is a good ROAS for ecommerce ads?

There is no universal good ROAS, because it is always relative to your break-even ROAS. A 2x ROAS is great on a high-margin product and a loss on a low-margin one. The right way to read it: find your break-even ROAS first, then aim above it by enough to cover your fixed costs and target profit. Use the target margin field above to see exactly which ROAS clears the margin you want.

What is the difference between ROAS and break-even ROAS?

ROAS is the result you actually got, your ad revenue divided by your ad spend on a campaign. Break-even ROAS is the threshold you need to hit, set by your unit economics. You compare the two: if your actual ROAS is above your break-even ROAS you are profitable, and if it is below you are paying to lose money. Knowing the threshold turns a raw ROAS number into a clear profit or loss signal.

What is break-even CPA and how is it related?

Break-even CPA is the most you can pay to acquire one order and still break even, and it equals your gross profit per order. It is the same economics as break-even ROAS, just expressed as a dollar limit instead of a ratio. If your gross profit is $60, your break-even CPA is $60 and your break-even ROAS is your price divided by $60. Use whichever your ad platform reports against.
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