Free calculator
ROAS calculator
Enter what you spent and what the ad platform says it earned. You get ROAS, the break-even ROAS for your margin, and how far the platform’s figure sits from the revenue Shopify recorded.
Results Example figures. Change any field.
ROAS
ROAS as a percentage
Break-even ROAS
Gross profit after ad spend
ROAS on Shopify revenue
Platform over-reporting
The formula
How it’s calculated.
ROAS = revenue from ads ÷ ad spend
Worked example
A store spends $10,000 on ads and the platform reports $32,000 in revenue: 32,000 ÷ 10,000 = 3.20×, or 320%. At a 60% gross margin, break-even ROAS is 1 ÷ 0.60 = 1.67×, so the campaign clears it. If Shopify recorded only $24,000 for those orders, the ROAS you can bank is 2.40×, and the platform over-reports by 33.3%.
How Shopify stores measure ROAS →What a good ROAS is. It depends on your margin.
A good ROAS is one above your break-even ROAS, the point where the gross profit on a sale just covers the ad. Break-even ROAS is 1 divided by your gross margin: 1.67× at 60%, 2× at 50%, 4× at 25%.
So the same 3× ROAS makes money for a brand with 60% margins and loses money for one with 22%.
Work out your break-even ROAS →Why the platform’s ROAS runs high.
By default, Meta credits an ad with a sale up to 7 days after a click, or 1 day after a view or an engagement. Google and TikTok claim orders by their own rules, so the same sale can be counted by two or three platforms at once.
ROAS on the revenue Shopify recorded is the figure that matches your bank account. Upstack Attribution reconciles every channel against Shopify revenue, so ROAS by channel adds up to the sales you made.
Why Meta reports more purchases than Shopify →More calculators
Related calculators.
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Break-even ROAS calculator
The ROAS and CPA where ads stop losing money, and the targets that leave a profit.
Break-even ROAS = order value ÷ (order value − product, shipping and fee costs)
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MER calculator
Marketing efficiency ratio, new-customer MER, and how much revenue the platforms claim.
MER = total revenue ÷ total ad spend
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CPA calculator
Cost per order, cost per new customer, and the most an order lets you pay.
CPA = ad spend ÷ orders
Questions
ROAS questions.
How do you calculate ROAS?
Divide the revenue from your ads by what you spent on them. $32,000 in revenue on $10,000 of spend is a ROAS of 3.2, written 3.2× or 320%.
What is a good ROAS?
Any ROAS above your break-even ROAS, which is 1 divided by your gross margin. At a 60% margin you break even at 1.67×; at 40% you need 2.5×. Most stores want room above that for returns and fixed costs, so they set targets well over break-even.
Is ROAS a ratio or a percentage?
Both are used. A ROAS of 3 means $3 back for every $1 spent; as a percentage that is 300%. Ad platforms usually show it as a plain number, such as 3.2.
What is the difference between ROAS and MER?
ROAS divides the revenue one platform attributes to its ads by that platform’s spend. MER divides all store revenue by all ad spend, so no attribution sits between the two and nothing can be counted twice. Use MER to check the total and ROAS to compare channels.
Get these numbers from your own store.
Upstack Attribution reports ROAS, MER, new-customer CAC, LTV and CM1 to CM4, reconciled against the revenue in Shopify.
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