See what every order really earns
Educational estimate only. All amounts are calculated locally in your browser.
Results
- Customer payment
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- Profit per order
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- Net margin
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- Maximum CPA
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- Break-even ROAS
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What these results mean
Profit per order and net margin tell you whether an order was worth taking; maximum CPA and break-even ROAS tell you how much ad spend that order can absorb before it stops being worth taking. A healthy margin with a low maximum CPA usually means fees and shipping are eating the room you have left for advertising — not that the product itself is unprofitable.
Worked example
With the default numbers above — a $29.99 sale price, $10 cost of goods, $3 ad spend, and a 5% return rate (plus the advanced defaults: $4 seller shipping, $1 packaging, 2.9% payment fee, $0.30 fixed fee) — the calculator shows a profit of $10.57 per order, a net margin of 35.2%, a maximum CPA of $13.57, and a break-even ROAS of 2.21x. Change the ad cost field to $13.57 and watch profit drop to roughly zero — that's what "maximum CPA" means in practice.
Common mistakes
- Comparing ROAS across products with different margins. A 3x ROAS can be profitable on a high-margin product and a loss on a low-margin one — the break-even ROAS number above is specific to this product's costs, not a universal target.
- Forgetting the return rate. A 5% return rate on a product with a $5 loss per return is a quiet 0.25 cent-per-order tax that never shows up if you only look at gross margin.
- Entering fee rates as whole percentages in the wrong field. Platform and payment fee rate fields expect a percentage (e.g. "2.9"), not a decimal (e.g. "0.029") — the calculator will silently compute a near-zero fee if you enter the decimal form.
FAQ
- Why is my profit per order different from my gross margin?
- Gross margin usually only subtracts product cost. This calculator also subtracts shipping, packaging, payment and platform fees, ad spend, and expected return losses — all of which reduce what an order actually earns.
- Should I use my average return rate or my worst-case return rate?
- Use your actual average across recent orders. Worst-case numbers will make every product look unprofitable; the point of this field is to reflect the real, ongoing cost of returns, not a stress test.
- Does this calculator account for taxes automatically?
- No. Tax rates vary by country, state, and product category, so this calculator asks you to enter the tax amount you bear per order directly rather than guessing a rate — see the methodology page for why.