To find your break-even point, divide your fixed costs by your contribution margin: the price of one unit minus its variable cost. The result is the number of units you must sell before the period stops losing money. Your gross margin then gives two ad numbers: break-even ROAS (one divided by the margin) and the most one order can cost.
Four numbers in, four out: the units that clear your costs, the revenue they bring, the break-even ROAS and the most one order can cost.
[ What you get ]
Units to break even, the revenue behind them, and the ROAS to beat
Break-even is the point where the money coming in covers the money going out. Everything it needs is already in your own costs.
What comes out:
- Units to break even. Fixed costs divided by your contribution margin, rounded up to a whole unit.
- The revenue behind them. The unit count times your price, in the same currency as your revenue target.
- Break-even ROAS and the most one order can cost. The floor a campaign’s return has to clear and the ceiling a cost per acquisition has to stay under.
Break-even is not profit. The answer clears the costs you typed in, and a real business has more of them: tax, returns, refunds, chargebacks and platform fees.
A catalog with a different margin on every line breaks even on a blended margin, so run each product on its own.
[ How to use it ]
Break-even calculator: three steps
Enter fixed costs
Add up what you pay whether you sell one unit or a thousand: rent, salaries, software, retainers. Use one period, usually a month.
Enter price and cost
Price is what a customer pays for one unit. Variable cost is what that unit costs you to deliver: goods, shipping, packaging, payment fee. The unit count appears as you type.
Add your gross margin
Type the share of the price left after the variable cost. At a $50 price and a $20 variable cost, that is 60%. Two more cards show the break-even ROAS and the most one order can cost.
Keep one currency and one period in every field. A yearly license typed next to a monthly rent counts the license twelve times, and the answer still looks reasonable.
[ The formula ]
Break-even units = fixed costs ÷ contribution margin
Break-even units equal fixed costs divided by contribution margin per unit, which is price minus variable cost per unit. Break-even revenue is that unit count times the price.
The common mistake is putting variable costs in the fixed-costs field. Shipping, payment fees and the cost of goods rise with every unit sold, so they belong in the variable cost.
[ Worked example ]
A $50 product with $12,000 of fixed costs breaks even at 400 units
A one-product store sells at $50. Each unit costs $20 to buy, pick and ship, so every sale contributes $30. Rent, salaries and software come to $12,000 a month.
$12,000 divided by $30 is 400 units, or $20,000 of revenue in the month. Each unit after that adds $30 of gross profit.
The gross margin is $30 on a $50 price, or 60%. That gives a break-even ROAS of 1.67× and a ceiling of $30.00 on what one order can cost.
The same run-through, field by field
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Fixed costs for the month | $12,000 |
| Price per unit | $50.00 |
| Variable cost per unit | $20.00 |
| Contribution margin per unit | $30.00 |
| Units to break even | 400 |
| Revenue at that point | $20,000 |
| Gross margin | 60% |
| Break-even ROAS | 1.67× |
| Most one order can cost to win | $30.00 |
[ Margin to ROAS ]
One divided by your gross margin is the return you have to clear
Break-even ROAS is one divided by your gross margin. At a 40% margin, each dollar of ads has to bring back $2.50, so break-even is 2.5×. At that point the ads have paid for themselves and nothing more.
That is why a good ROAS has no answer in the abstract. A 70% margin breaks even at 1.43× and a 20% margin at 5×. Compare your return with your own break-even number.
The same margin sets the order ceiling: price times margin. On a $50 sale at 40% that is $20.00, so a $21 cost per acquisition is already a loss.
Break-even ROAS by gross margin, on a $50 sale
| Gross margin | Break-even ROAS | Most one order can cost |
|---|---|---|
| 20% | 5× | $10.00 |
| 30% | 3.33× | $15.00 |
| 40% | 2.5× | $20.00 |
| 50% | 2× | $25.00 |
| 60% | 1.67× | $30.00 |
| 70% | 1.43× | $35.00 |
| 80% | 1.25× | $40.00 |
[ Discounts ]
A 20% discount adds 50% to the units you have to sell
Take 20% off the $50 product and the price becomes $40. The $20 variable cost stays, so the contribution margin falls from $30 to $20: a third of it, not a fifth. Break-even goes from 400 units to 600.
The ad numbers move too. Gross margin drops from 60% to 50%, break-even ROAS rises from 1.67× to 2× and the most one order can cost falls from $30.00 to $20.00. Re-run the numbers before the promotion starts, not after it ends.
[ Limits ]
Free version limits
The calculator runs in your browser; there is no limit and no account. We don’t store your numbers.
One run covers one product over one period, in one currency: the currency select changes the symbol, and nothing is converted.
[ Why marketers use it ]
Know the ROAS you must clear — before the campaign spends a dollar
An ad account will report a 2.1 return as a win. Whether it is one depends on your margin: at 60%, 2.1 is profit; at 40%, it is a loss. Break-even ROAS turns the dashboard figure into a verdict.
The most one order can cost does the same job for cost per acquisition. A $24 CPA means nothing on its own. Next to a $30 ceiling it has room to grow; next to a $20 one it is a campaign to pause.
The unit count gives a campaign its pace. Four hundred units in a 30-day month is 14 orders a day, so a campaign bringing nine a day falls short, and you see it in the first week.
What the arithmetic can’t show is what the rest of your market runs. In Spytrend you can read those ads, with how long each has run, against the number you worked out here.
[ Go further with Spytrend ]
Test your price and your promotion against the ads that keep running
Break-even arithmetic works on your own costs; Spytrend adds the market around them.
Spytrend is an ad intelligence platform for Facebook and TikTok advertising: a full five-year archive of ads, AI-classified into 33 business categories, with every advertiser assembled into a single card — all ads, pages, domains and countries in one place.
Two jobs your cost sheet can’t do
- Pricing against offers already running. Search the product you sell and read the offers in the ads that mention it: bundles, free-shipping thresholds, prices in the creative. An offer still live after weeks is one its advertiser can afford.
- Timing a discount. Once you know how many extra units a discount needs, check how long sale ads in your market stayed on. A promotion gone after a weekend tells you something different from one live for two months.
From one break-even number to the market, in three steps
- Search your market. Type a competitor’s brand or domain, or the product you sell.
- Keep the ads that lasted. Set days running to 30 or more, so the tests switched off early drop out.
- Read the longest runner. Open its advertiser and set the offer and price against your own break-even ROAS.
How to start
Create a free account and search a brand or a domain you compete with before you settle on a price. A free account opens the ad library; paid plans add fresh ads and every filter.