Break-even ROAS & Maximum CPA Calculator
Educational estimate only. All amounts are calculated locally in your browser.
A high ROAS can still lose money if your margins are thin. This calculator tells you the ROAS you need just to break even, and the most you can spend acquiring a customer before an order stops being profitable.
Results
- Order revenue
- —
- Maximum CPA
- —
- Break-even ROAS
- —
What these results mean
Break-even ROAS is the return on ad spend where profit is exactly zero — anything above it is profitable, anything below it loses money on that order. Maximum CPA is the same number expressed in dollars instead of a ratio: the most you can pay to acquire one customer for this product before the order stops paying for itself.
Worked example
With a $29.99 sale price, $10 cost of goods, a 5% return rate, and the advanced defaults ($4 seller shipping, $1 packaging, 2.9% payment fee, $0.30 fixed fee), order revenue is $29.99, maximum CPA is $13.57, and break-even ROAS is 2.21x. That means spending anything up to $13.57 in ads to acquire this order still leaves some profit; a platform reporting a 2x ROAS on this product would actually mean you're losing money on it.
Common mistakes
- Treating one product's break-even ROAS as a store-wide ad target. Every SKU with a different cost or price has its own break-even ROAS — a blended average can hide products that are losing money.
- Ignoring returns when computing break-even. A return rate that isn't entered here understates costs and overstates how much ad spend you can actually afford.
- Reading "ROAS" from an ad platform as pure profit. Platform-reported ROAS is revenue divided by ad spend — it says nothing about fees, shipping, or COGS, which is exactly what this calculator adds back in.
FAQ
- Why isn't there an ad cost field on this page?
- Maximum CPA and break-even ROAS are the ceiling for ad spend — they don't depend on how much you're actually spending. To see profit at a specific ad cost, use the main profit calculator.
- What if my actual ROAS is below the break-even number?
- The order is losing money once fees, shipping, COGS, and returns are counted, even if revenue exceeds ad spend. Raising price, lowering costs, or lowering ad spend are the three levers that move the break-even point.