Break-even ROAS calculator

There is no single number. A good ROAS is one above your break-even, and that depends on your margin and how many orders come back. A product with a thin margin and many returns can lose money at a ROAS that looks high. Type your own numbers above to see yours.

Work out what one order makes before ads, counting the orders that come back: over 100 orders shipped, add up the profit on the delivered ones, take off what the RTOs and returns cost, and divide by 100. That is the most one order can cost in ads. Divide your selling price by it: ₹299 ÷ ₹97 gives a break-even ROAS of 3.1 in the example above.

ROAS stands for return on ad spend: sales from ads ÷ ad spend. If ₹1,000 of ads brought ₹6,000 of orders, the ROAS is 6. On its own it says nothing about profit, so compare it with your break-even ROAS.

ACOS, advertising cost of sales, is ad spend ÷ sales from ads as a percentage: ROAS the other way up, so a ROAS of 5 is an ACOS of 20%. Amazon's ad reports show ACOS. Choose ACOS above and type the figure from your dashboard; your break-even ACOS is the highest it can go before the ads lose money.

ROAS counts sales for each rupee of ads. ROI counts profit: what is left after the product, the marketplace's fees, returns and the ads themselves. A ROAS of 6 can still lose money on a product with a thin margin, which is why this calculator works the break-even out from your own costs.

You pay for the ad whether the order is kept or not. An RTO or a returned order earns nothing, and a return also costs a return fee, so the ad budget has to come out of the orders that are kept. Leave them out and the break-even looks better than it is.

There is no fixed price: what you spend depends on the budget you set and how many orders the ads bring. What matters is the ad cost per order, ad spend ÷ orders from ads. If it is more than the most you can spend shown above, the ads are losing money on that product. Your ad spend is on the “Ads Cost” sheet of your payment file; Meesho seller charges shows where.

Enter ad spend with GST, as it is taken from your payment. If you have a GST number you can usually claim that 18% back, so your real ad cost is a little lower and the result errs on the safe side.

Yes. Pick Flipkart or Amazon at the top: the fee boxes change to that marketplace's charges, and the ads arithmetic is the same on all three. To price a product without ads, use the Meesho profit calculator, the Flipkart seller calculator or the Amazon seller calculator.

Yes. There is no signup and no limit. The sums are done in your browser, so the prices, costs and ad figures you type are not sent to us.