Free Breakeven ROAS & Max CPC Calculator
Turn your margin, conversion rate, and order value into the numbers that actually run a campaign: breakeven ROAS, the ROAS for your profit goal, and the maximum you can bid per click and per order.
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Gross margin
40%
Conversion rate
2.5%
Target profit (% of revenue)
10%
Your numbers
2.50×
Breakeven ROAS
3.33×
Target ROAS (10% profit)
$32.00
Max cost / order
$0.80
Max cost / click
At 40% margin you break even when ads return 2.50× in revenue per dollar spent. To keep 10% profit you need 3.33×. You can pay up to $0.80 per click ($32.00 per order) and still break even — bid above that and you lose money on each sale.
Is your campaign profitable?
Your current ROAS
3.0×
Profitable
Your 3.0× ROAS is 20% above your 2.50× breakeven. You have room to scale spend.
Target ROAS sensitivity
How the ROAS you need shifts with margin and profit goal. Greener is easier to hit.
| Margin ↓ / Profit → | 0% | 10% | 20% |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20% | 5.00× | 10.00× | ∞ |
| 30% | 3.33× | 5.00× | 10.00× |
| 40% | 2.50× | 3.33× | 5.00× |
| 50% | 2.00× | 2.50× | 3.33× |
| 60% | 1.67× | 2.00× | 2.50× |
| 70% | 1.43× | 1.67× | 2.00× |
From ROAS to the numbers you actually bid with
Breakeven ROAS - the return on ad spend at which you neither make nor lose money - is set entirely by your gross margin: at a 40% margin you break even at a 2.5× ROAS, because every dollar of revenue only carries forty cents of profit to spend on ads. That is useful, but it is not what you type into an ad platform. This calculator goes the crucial step further that most ROAS tools skip: it converts your margin, average order value, and conversion rate into the maximum cost per click and maximum cost per acquisition you can pay and still profit. Those are the real levers - the bid caps and target CPAs you set in Google and Meta - so you leave with numbers you can act on, not just a ratio.
Target ROAS for a profit goal, not just breakeven
Breaking even is the floor, not the goal. Enter the profit you want to keep as a percentage of revenue and the calculator shows the target ROAS that delivers it, along with the tighter max CPC that goal implies. This is how you translate a business objective ("I want to net 10% on this channel") into a campaign setting your media buyer or ad platform can optimize toward. It makes the trade-off explicit: a more ambitious profit target demands a higher ROAS and a lower bid ceiling, which usually means less volume - so you can choose the balance deliberately instead of discovering it after the spend.
Sensitivity and a live profitability check
Two more views make this genuinely useful rather than basic. The sensitivity table shows how the ROAS you need moves as your margin and profit target change, so you can see at a glance which levers matter most - often a small margin improvement loosens your bid caps more than chasing a higher ROAS. And the live-campaign check lets you drop in your current ROAS to get an instant verdict: profitable or not, and by how much margin of safety, with a plain-English next step. Everything runs in your browser; no numbers are sent anywhere.
Frequently Asked Questions
Breakeven ROAS = 1 ÷ gross margin. If your gross margin is 40% (0.40), your breakeven ROAS is 1 ÷ 0.40 = 2.5×. That means you need $2.50 of revenue for every $1 of ad spend just to cover the product cost plus the ad cost. Below that ROAS you lose money on each sale; above it you profit. Note this uses gross margin - if you also want to cover overhead, use a lower effective margin.
Max CPC is the most you can pay for a click and still break even: max CPA × conversion rate, where max CPA equals your gross profit per order. ROAS is a scorecard you read after the fact; max CPC is a control you set before the fact - it is the bid cap that keeps you profitable. Knowing it turns "is this campaign working?" into "here is the exact bid ceiling I should never exceed."
Use gross margin (revenue minus cost of goods) for a pure product-level breakeven. If you want your ads to also cover overhead, shipping, returns, or payment fees, subtract those first and use the lower "contribution margin" - the calculator will then show a higher, more conservative breakeven ROAS and lower bid caps. Which you choose depends on whether you are protecting product profit or whole-business profit.
Because profit target and ad spend compete for the same margin. Target ROAS = 1 ÷ (margin − target profit %). If your margin is 40% and you want to keep 10% profit, you can only spend 30% of revenue on ads, which requires a 1 ÷ 0.30 ≈ 3.33× ROAS. The more profit you reserve, the less you can spend, the higher the ROAS you must hit - and the lower your max CPC. The sensitivity table visualizes exactly this trade-off.
Not directly - it uses a single order's value and margin, which is the correct conservative basis for a first-purchase acquisition campaign. If your customers reliably buy again, your true allowable CPA is higher because lifetime value exceeds first-order value. In that case, substitute your expected per-customer contribution (or use our Customer LTV and LTV:CAC calculators) for AOV to bid to lifetime economics.
Want Campaigns Built on These Numbers?
Knowing your max CPC is one thing; hitting it at scale is another. We run paid media that stays profitable as it grows - structured around your real unit economics.