Paid Ads
Know your break-even ROAS
The one number that splits profit from loss on every order. Work it out from your real unit economics before you spend a dollar, then aim above it.
A "3x ROAS" tells you nothing on its own. If every sale leaves you 30 cents on the dollar, a 3x is barely breaking even and a 2x loses money on every order. Break-even ROAS is the single number that says whether your ads make money or burn it. Without it, you're guessing.
Break-even ROAS is the point where your ads stop losing money and start making it. It's just your price divided by what's left after the real cost of one sale:
Break-even ROAS = price ÷ (price − COGS − shipping − payment fees − pick/pack)
That's the same as 1 ÷ your contribution margin. AI can run the arithmetic and set your target the instant you hand it your unit economics; the calculator on this page does the same live, so use it to sanity-check by hand.
In this lesson
- Fastest path: one prompt, end to end
- Or do it in 5 steps
- Worked example (illustrative, use the calculator on this page for yours)
What you'll learn
- List every per-unit cost
- Get contribution profit
- Compute break-even ROAS
- Set a target above it
- Recompute when a cost moves