The ROAS you have to beat, after everything comes out.

The platform reports the revenue its pixel saw. It never subtracts cost of goods, shipping, payment fees or the orders that come back. Put those in for the number a campaign has to clear.

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Break-even ROAS

2.49×

On the revenue the platform reports. Below this, the campaign buys orders that cost more than they leave behind.

Contribution per order, before ad spend321.28
Contribution margin40.2%
Orders you keep per 100 the platform reported88
Target ROAS to keep that profit3.32×

There is room here: at a 10% profit target you need 3.32× on reported revenue, against a break-even of 2.49×.

contribution = (1 − return rate) × (order value × (1 − cost of goods % − fees %) − shipping) − return rate × 2 × shipping

break-even ROAS = order value ÷ contribution

What it assumes. A returned order refunds the revenue, recovers the goods and refunds the fees, but you pay shipping twice, out and back. If returns can't be resold, raise cost of goods instead of the return rate. Everything is per order, in whatever currency you run.

The platform grades itself before four deductions.

Ad spend comes off last. Cost of goods, payment fees, shipping and returns come out first, and the system bidding for you sees none of them. That is how a campaign hits its target on the platform's own dashboard and still loses money on every order it wins: the target was set against gross revenue.

Returns make it concrete. About 19.3% of online sales come back, usually after the month you already reported, and the platform does not retract a conversion it has counted (more on the ecommerce page). Marketplaces have it worse when conversion value passes gross transaction value: a reported 6× at a 13% take rate is 0.8× on the revenue you bank (the marketplaces page).

Return rate: NRF, 2025 Retail Returns Landscape, 15 October 2025.

Break-even ROAS by margin and return rate.

Shipping excluded, so this is the clean version: break-even ROAS = 1 ÷ (contribution margin × (1 − return rate)). Read down your margin, across your return rate.

Contribution margin	0% returns	10%	20%	30%
20%	5.00×	5.56×	6.25×	7.14×
30%	3.33×	3.70×	4.17×	4.76×
40%	2.50×	2.78×	3.13×	3.57×
50%	2.00×	2.22×	2.50×	2.86×
60%	1.67×	1.85×	2.08×	2.38×

The 20% column is shaded because it sits close to the online average, not because it is a recommendation. Use your own return rate, per cohort: a discount-led campaign and a full-price one rarely return at the same rate.

Three ways this number gets read wrong.

Against the wrong revenue figure. Break-even here is stated against the revenue the platform reports, because that is what the bid strategy optimises toward. Compare it against net revenue and you count the returns twice.
With one return rate for the whole account. The campaigns that return hardest are often the ones with the best reported ROAS: discount-led volume comes back more often than full-price demand. One blended rate hides exactly the campaign this calculation exists to find.
Across platforms, as if the inputs matched. Meta and Google count a conversion over different windows with different models, so the same break-even means two different things on the two dashboards. Why the two ROAS figures are not comparable.

The limit of this page: it is arithmetic on numbers you type. It can't tell whether your tracking is intact, whether the account has enough conversions to optimise on (the conversion signal check answers that in a minute), or whether yesterday's ROAS has finished maturing. On a live account, Adgent's Trust Gate keeps a metric window it can't trust from turning into an action, and its agents read Meta and Google next to GA4 and Merchant Center (ground truth).

Break-even ROAS, answered.

What is break-even ROAS?

Break-even ROAS is the return on ad spend at which a campaign makes you exactly nothing. It is your reported revenue divided by the contribution each order leaves after cost of goods, shipping, payment fees and returns. Above it you are buying profit; below it you are buying volume at a loss.

How do returns change break-even ROAS?

A return removes the revenue but not all of the cost, so the orders you keep have to carry the ones that came back. With a 40% contribution margin and no returns you break even at 2.5×. At a 20% return rate the same account breaks even at 3.13×. The platform never sees the difference, because it does not retract a conversion it already counted.

Is break-even ROAS the same as target ROAS?

No. Break-even ROAS is where profit is zero. Target ROAS is the number you set in the platform to leave yourself a margin. It is higher when you want to keep a positive profit, and equal to break-even when the profit target is zero. This calculator gives you both.

Why is my platform ROAS higher than the ROAS in here?

Because they measure different things. The platform reports revenue at the moment its pixel fires, before refunds, discounts, marketplace commission or cost of goods. This calculator works on the money you keep. A marketplace passing gross transaction value at a 13% take rate reports 6× on revenue it banks 0.8× of.

Method. The calculator applies the two formulas printed above and nothing else: no benchmark data, no model, no stored inputs. Every figure is computed in your browser; the page makes no network request while you use it, and we never see what you type. Source for the one figure this page cites: return rate from the NRF 2025 Retail Returns Landscape, published 15 October 2025. Written by the Adgent team. Published 7 September 2026. If a formula here is wrong, tell us and we will correct it on the page.

Now judge the real account against it.

Bring the break-even from this page to a conversation about your Meta and Google accounts.

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