True Break-Even ROAS & Profit Margin Simulator
Stop losing money on Meta & Google Ads. Calculate your exact minimum ROAS, maximum CAC, and required sales volume based on real product margins.
Break-Even ROAS = 1 ÷ Contribution Margin %
At a 62% contribution margin your break-even ROAS is 1.61x — below it every sale loses money. Add COGS, shipping and gateway fees below for your exact number.
Target ROAS for a 20% profit = Price ÷ (Contribution − 20% × Price).
Unit economics
Sensitivity matrix — break-even ROAS
Rows: COGS inflation · Columns: price changeCalculating this manually once is great. Knowing when your real ad performance dips below break-even is better.
Flowsk Signals parses your daily ad spend reports automatically and sends instant Web Push & Email alerts when your blended ROAS hits the red zone.
Break-even ROAS by industry
Pre-loaded with real benchmark economics — pick your niche to start from a defensible number.
How to use this calculation to set Meta Ads Target ROAS
Three steps from unit economics to a bid target you can actually enter in Ads Manager.
Lock your true contribution margin
Use landed COGS, not invoice cost — add freight, duties, packaging and the payment cut. Most stores overstate margin by 4–8 points here, which is exactly the gap between profitable and quietly bleeding.
Set the floor, then the target
Break-even ROAS is the floor — never a goal. Enter the 20%-profit target ROAS as your Meta ROAS bid cap, and treat anything between the two numbers as a learning budget you have consciously chosen to spend.
Watch blended, act on the red zone
Platform ROAS over-reports. Compare blended MER against this floor weekly, and cut or rebuild any campaign that sits under it for three consecutive days rather than reacting to single-day noise.
ROAS vs MER
Two ratios, two jobs. One tunes a campaign, the other tells you whether the business made money.
Frequently asked questions
Break-even ROAS, maximum CAC and target ROAS — answered.
What is break-even ROAS?
Break-even ROAS is the return on ad spend at which advertising profit is exactly zero. It equals 1 divided by your contribution margin: a 50% margin breaks even at 2.0x, an 80% margin at 1.25x.
How do I calculate my maximum CAC?
Your maximum allowable CAC equals your contribution margin per unit — price minus COGS, shipping and payment fees. Pay more than that to acquire a customer and the first order loses money.
What is a good target ROAS?
Set target ROAS above break-even to leave room for profit. For a 20% net-margin goal, target ROAS = price ÷ (contribution − 20% of price). The calculator computes it live.
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