Free Break-Even ROAS Calculator

Find the exact ROAS you need just to break even, the most you can pay per acquisition, and how much you can afford to spend on ads. Enter your price and costs and plan a profitable campaign in seconds.

Break-even ROAS
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Enter your price and cost to see your break-even ROAS
Gross margin--(Price minus cost) / price
Break-even ROAS--ROAS needed to cover costs
Max CPA--Most you can pay per sale
Max CPC at your CR--Add a conversion rate below

Ad budget planner

Optional — estimate CPC and profit at a planned spend
Max CPC--At break-even
Sales to break even--Conversions to cover this spend
Revenue to break even--Total sales value at this spend
Clicks needed--Visitors needed at your CR

Pro tip. Your break-even ROAS is a ceiling, not a goal. Aim above it by entering a target margin to find the max CPA that still leaves real profit, then use that as your bid cap in the ad platform.

Find your break-even ROAS in 3 steps

Turn your price and costs into the numbers that actually decide whether a campaign makes money: break-even ROAS, max CPA and the budget you can afford, all in under a minute.

  1. 01

    Enter your price and product cost

    Type in your order price and the cost of goods plus fixed costs per sale. The calculator derives your gross margin and break-even ROAS live.

  2. 02

    Read your break-even ROAS and max CPA

    See the exact ROAS you need to break even, the most you can pay per acquisition, and where your margin sits on the benchmark.

  3. 03

    Plan your budget and target

    Add a target margin and conversion rate to see your max CPC and how much profit a planned ad spend should return.

Why break-even ROAS is the number that matters

ROAS on its own does not tell you if a campaign is profitable. Knowing your break-even ROAS and max CPA turns every dashboard number into a clear yes or no on whether to scale, hold or kill.

Know your profit line

See the exact ROAS where revenue covers spend and costs, so you instantly know whether a campaign is making money or bleeding it.

Set the right max CPA

Cap your cost per acquisition with confidence. Bid up to your max allowable CPA to win volume without ever buying unprofitable conversions.

Plan budget before you spend

Work out how much you can afford to spend and what profit a campaign should return before you commit a single dollar of budget.

Free, private, no AI

Run every scenario in your browser with no signup and no AI. Your prices, costs and margins never leave your device.

Where media buyers use the break-even calculator

From launching a new offer to deciding what to scale, here is how performance marketers and agencies use break-even ROAS and max CPA to make budget calls with confidence.

Launching a new offer

Before you turn on spend, work out the break-even ROAS and max CPA a new product needs so you know what good looks like from day one.

Deciding what to scale

Compare each campaign to its break-even ROAS to see which ones have room to scale profitably and which are already underwater.

Setting CPA and CPC caps

Translate your margin into a max allowable CPA and max CPC so your bid caps and target CPA settings are grounded in real profit.

DTC and ecommerce

Account for product cost and fees on every sale so your ROAS targets reflect true unit economics, not just top-line revenue.

Affiliate campaigns

Use payout per conversion as your margin to find the max CPA and CPC you can bid while staying in the green on every flow.

Client work and agencies

Share a result link so clients sign off on the break-even ROAS and budget plan before a single dollar of media is spent.

FAQs

Break-even ROAS is the return on ad spend at which your revenue exactly covers your ad spend plus your product costs, so you make zero profit and zero loss. Anything above your break-even ROAS is profit, anything below it is a loss. It is the single most important number for a media buyer because it tells you the minimum performance a campaign needs just to stay alive.
Break-even ROAS is 1 divided by your gross profit margin expressed as a fraction. The shortcut is price divided by gross profit per sale. For example, if you sell a product for $100 and it costs you $25 in goods and fees, your gross profit is $75 and your margin is 75%, so your break-even ROAS is 1 / 0.75 = 1.33x. A thinner 25% margin means a 4x break-even ROAS. Enter your price and cost above and the calculator does this instantly.
Your maximum allowable cost per acquisition is the most you can pay to acquire one customer and still break even. At break-even it equals your gross profit per sale: price minus product and fixed costs. If a sale leaves you $75 of gross profit, your break-even max CPA is $75. Pay more than that per conversion and the campaign loses money. To keep a profit margin, your target max CPA is lower than the break-even figure.
Margin and break-even ROAS move in opposite directions. The higher your gross margin, the lower your break-even ROAS, because each sale carries more profit to cover ad costs. A 50% margin needs only a 2x ROAS to break even, while a 20% margin needs 5x. This is why fat-margin offers can scale on lower ROAS while thin-margin products must run very efficient campaigns to survive.
Your target ROAS should sit comfortably above your break-even ROAS by enough to deliver the profit you want. A common rule of thumb is to add a buffer on top of break-even to cover overhead, returns and the profit you need to keep. Enter a target profit margin above and the planner shows the max CPA you can pay to hit it. There is no universal number: a healthy target ROAS for a 20% margin offer looks very different from a 70% margin offer.
Yes. The break-even ROAS and ad budget planner is 100% free with no signup and no limits. Run as many scenarios as you like, for any offer or campaign, without paying anything.
No. The calculator runs entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Your prices, costs and margins never leave your device and are never sent to our servers. When you copy a result link, the values are encoded in the URL so you can share a scenario, but nothing is stored on our side.

Lower your real CPA with a better landing page

Knowing your break-even is half the battle. A higher-converting landing page lowers your real cost per acquisition and gives you room under your break-even ROAS. Build one with LanderLab in minutes.

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