ROAS Calculator
(Return on Ad Spend)
Work out return on ad spend from what your ads cost and the revenue they brought in. Or enter a target and see the revenue you need to reach it.
Step 1 — Core Metrics
Total money spent on ads
Do you know your revenue?
Revenue directly generated from your ads
ROAS Results
💡 ROAS Formula Guide
This ROAS calculator works out return on ad spend, the revenue earned for each dollar spent on advertising. Enter ad spend and the revenue it produced to get ROAS as a multiple and a percentage. If you are planning a campaign, enter a target ROAS and it shows the revenue you need. Add your product cost to see whether that return is actually a profit.
How to Calculate ROAS
ROAS is the revenue from ads divided by the cost of those ads.
A campaign that cost $1,250 and brought in $5,000 of sales has a ROAS of $5,000 ÷ $1,250 = 4. The same result is written three ways:
| Form | Example | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|
| Multiple | 4x | Everyday use, Meta Ads |
| Ratio | 4:1 | Reports and agency decks |
| Percentage | 400% | Google Ads target ROAS settings |
To work backwards, multiply ad spend by the ROAS you want. A $2,000 budget at a 3x target needs $6,000 of revenue.
Break-Even and Target ROAS
ROAS counts revenue, so a campaign can show a healthy multiple and still lose money. The dividing line is break-even ROAS, which depends only on the share of each sale left after product costs.
| Gross margin | Break-even ROAS | Target ROAS to keep 10% of revenue |
|---|---|---|
| 25% | 4.00x | 6.67x |
| 40% | 2.50x | 3.33x |
| 50% | 2.00x | 2.50x |
| 70% | 1.43x | 1.67x |
A target ROAS is break-even with room for profit: divide 1 by the margin minus the profit share you want to keep. The Break-Even ROAS Calculator works out both from your selling price and costs, including shipping and packaging.
What Is a Good ROAS?
There is no single good ROAS. A return of 4x is often quoted as a rule of thumb for ecommerce, but whether 4x makes money depends entirely on your margin. A business keeping 20% of each sale loses money at 4x, and one keeping 70% is comfortably profitable at 2x.
Published medians are lower than the rule of thumb. Triple Whale reported a median ROAS of 2.04 across the brands on its platform in 2024. Search ads generally report a higher ROAS than social ads, because a search ad reaches someone already looking for the product and a social ad interrupts someone who was not. Judge your own figure against your break-even ROAS first and against a benchmark second.
ROAS Is Not ROI
ROI measures profit against every cost, where ROAS measures revenue against ad spend alone.
Take $1,000 of ad spend that produces $3,000 of revenue from products that cost $2,250 to supply. ROAS is 3x. Profit is $3,000 − $1,000 − $2,250 = −$250, so ROI is −$250 ÷ $3,250 = −7.7%. The campaign looked fine by ROAS and lost money. Enter a unit cost in the calculator and it reports profit and ROI alongside ROAS for this reason. To look at the same campaign per order, use the CPA Calculator.
How to Use the ROAS Calculator
- Enter ad spend: Type in what the campaign cost over the period you are measuring.
- Enter revenue or a target: If you know the revenue the ads produced, enter it. If you are planning, choose the target option and enter a revenue goal or a target ROAS as a percentage, where 400 means 4x.
- Add order value and product cost: Optional. Average order value and unit cost turn the result into orders, cost per acquisition and profit after the cost of goods.
- Add impressions and click-through rate: Optional. These add CPM, clicks and cost per click to the result.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I calculate ROAS?
Divide the revenue that came from your ads by what the ads cost. $5,000 of revenue from $1,250 of ad spend is a ROAS of $5,000 ÷ $1,250 = 4, written as 4x, 4:1 or 400%.
What does a 4x ROAS mean?
Every dollar spent on ads brought in four dollars of revenue. It is revenue and not profit: the four dollars still have to pay for the product, shipping and fees, and for the one dollar of advertising.
Is a 2x ROAS good?
It depends on margin. If 60% of each sale is left after product costs, break-even is about 1.67x and 2x is profitable. If only 30% is left, break-even is about 3.33x and 2x loses money on every order.
How do I calculate a target ROAS?
Start from your margin after product costs and subtract the share of revenue you want to keep as profit. Divide 1 by what is left. With a 50% margin and a 20% profit goal, target ROAS is 1 ÷ (0.50 − 0.20) = 3.33x.
How is ROAS different from ROI?
ROAS compares revenue with ad spend only. ROI compares profit with all the costs, including the product itself. A campaign with a 3x ROAS on a product with a 25% margin has a negative ROI, because the margin does not cover the advertising.
Why does my ad platform show a higher ROAS than I calculate?
The platform counts every sale it can attribute to itself within its attribution window, including some that followed an ad view with no click, and two platforms can both claim the same order. Dividing your store's total revenue by total ad spend across all channels gives a blended figure that is usually lower and closer to the truth.
The Triple Whale median is quoted from published summaries of its 2024 data; the original report could not be opened to confirm it.