How do I calculate the ROI of an ad campaign?

Multiply the sales the campaign brought in by your gross margin, subtract what you spent and divide by what you spent: ROI = (sales × margin − investment) ÷ investment × 100. You use the margin because part of every sale pays for the product you delivered.

What is the difference between ROAS and ROI?

ROAS divides sales by the investment: how much you sell for every dollar you put in. ROI divides net profit by the investment: how much you make or lose for every dollar. A 3× ROAS is a −25% ROI at a 25% margin and a 20% ROI at a 40% margin, so ROAS alone isn't enough to decide.

It depends on your margin. The minimum ROAS to break even is 1 ÷ margin: 4× at a 25% margin, 2.5× at 40% and 2× at 50%. Above your break-even you make money; how far above you need to be depends on the profit you want on the investment.

What counts as investment?

Everything you paid to get those sales: ad spend, ad design or production, salesperson or agency commissions, the time of whoever handled the campaign and the tools you paid for. Leave out the cost of the products: that is already in your margin.

Free ROI and ROAS Calculator for Ads and Sales

How much would you need to sell to make what you want?

Enter how much you want to make on what you invest and we'll show you the sales and ROAS you need.

Profit you want on the investment (%)

At 50%, every $1 you invest has to come back and leave you $0.50 on top.

Sales you need — Investment × (1 + profit) ÷ margin

ROAS you need — Sales ÷ investment

Fill in your investment and your margin to see how much you would need to sell.

By the profit you want
Profit on investment	Sales you need	ROAS
0% (break-even)	—	—
25 %	—	—
50 %	—	—
100 %	—	—
200 %	—	—

An ROI calculator answers the question that matters after you pay for a campaign: did that money come back as profit, or just as sales? Selling $3,000 on $1,000 of ad spend sounds great, but if you keep 25% of each sale, you lost $250. The difference is your margin, and ROAS on its own never shows it. The same math works for a salesperson on commission, a new channel or a tool you pay for every month.

How ROI is calculated

What you earn from a campaign is not the sales, it's what you keep from them after paying for what you sold:

ROI = (sales × margin − investment) ÷ investment × 100

ROAS: $3,000 ÷ $1,000 = 3×.
Gross profit: $3,000 × 25% = $750.
Net profit: $750 − $1,000 = −$250.
ROI: −$250 ÷ $1,000 × 100 = −25%.

Your break-even ROAS

At a 25% margin you keep $0.25 of every $1 you sell, so you need to sell $4 to pay back each $1 you invest. That's your break-even ROAS = 1 ÷ margin: 4× at 25%, 2.5× at 40%, 2× at 50%. Below it you lose money even while selling; above it the investment pays for itself. That's why copying another business's "good" ROAS makes no sense.

Sales you need to hit a goal

Breaking even isn't the goal. To get 50% back on top of every dollar invested: sales = investment × (1 + goal) ÷ margin. With $1,000 invested and a 25% margin, that's $1,000 × 1.5 ÷ 0.25 = $6,000 in sales, a 6× ROAS.

Count as investment everything you paid to get those sales (ad spend, creative, commissions, people, tools), and enter sales before sales tax and after discounts. If your orders come in on WhatsApp, Zavora's AI order automation logs every order with customer, products and total, so your sales numbers are ready each month. See pricing or browse more free tools.

Sales ROI calculator