Ad Spend ROI Calculator
This free tool calculates your real ad spend ROI. How many sales you need to break even and what return you’re actually getting. Enter your ad spend, average sale value, and margin to see your own numbers.
Ad Spend ROI Calculator
Why does real ROI matter more than revenue?
Revenue from a campaign isn't profit. A campaign that looks like a win on revenue alone can be a loss once the real costs are counted.
Same campaign, two outcomes. Looks profitable: $10,000 in sales from $1,000 in ad spend, ten times return on paper. Actually profitable: that $10,000 includes $4,000 in cost of goods. Once ad spend and product cost come out, the real return is $5,000, half what the headline number suggested.
Common Questions
What is ad spend ROI?
Ad spend ROI is the actual profit a campaign generates once every real cost is counted, not just the revenue it brought in. It accounts for the ad spend itself and the cost of goods sold, so it shows what you actually kept. Revenue alone can make a losing campaign look like a win.
How do I calculate my true ad spend ROI?
Take the revenue a campaign generated, subtract the cost of goods sold and the ad spend, and what's left is the real return. Divide that by the ad spend to see your actual return, not the headline revenue number. This is the figure that tells you whether a campaign is genuinely worth repeating.
Why does revenue look better than actual profit?
Revenue counts every dollar that came in, but it ignores what it cost to produce and sell the product. A campaign showing $10,000 in sales from $1,000 in ad spend looks like a ten times return, until the cost of goods is subtracted and the real number is far lower.
What is a good ROI for ad spend?
There is no universal number, since it depends on your margins and industry, but the return needs to comfortably cover both ad spend and cost of goods with profit left over. A campaign that only breaks even after real costs is not worth scaling, even if the revenue looks strong.
How does gross margin affect ad spend ROI?
A lower gross margin means less of each sale is left over after the cost of goods, so the same ad spend needs to generate more sales to turn a profit. Two campaigns with identical revenue can have very different real returns if their margins are different.