Paid media, from live accounts
The ROAS Ads Manager shows you is not the ROAS you need.
Returns, discount codes, attribution windows and repeat purchase all sit between the number on the dashboard and the number that pays your wages. The calculator below works out both, for your brand, in about ninety seconds.
Worked example · apparel · £54 AOV
Same account, same week. At 4.10x reported, this brand is banking about 65p of contribution for every £1 it needs to break even. Nothing in Ads Manager says so.
Why your numbers often don't stack.
Returns cost more than the margin they hand back
A returned order refunds the revenue but keeps the delivery, the return leg and whatever can't go back on the shelf. At an 18% return rate that's roughly a fifth of your contribution gone before you count a single click.
Discount codes don't apply to every order
Most calculators take your list margin and stop. If 45% of orders use a 20% code, your real margin is nine points lower than the one in the spreadsheet, and it moves every time you run a promotion.
A 7-day click, 1-day view window credits itself generously
Meta counts an order it may only have witnessed. In most accounts I test, platform revenue runs 15–35% above what a geo holdout or the Shopify total supports. That's the correction this calculator asks you to make.
First-order break-even ignores the second order
If a customer reorders inside 90 days, you can afford to acquire them for more than the first basket allows. Judge it on 90 days of banked contribution, not a lifetime value you hope shows up.
Free tools
Know your numbers before you look at Ads Manager.
Contribution margin calculator
Order value, cost of goods, shipping, pick and pack, payment fees. The margin check in thirty seconds: what’s actually left of an order before ad spend even enters it.
Break-even ROAS calculator
Sixteen inputs: order value, cost of goods, fees, returns, VAT, discount depth, attribution multiplier, repeat orders. It gives you the number to hold the account to, and the number Ads Manager has to show for that to be true.
Who’s behind it
Stuart McLeod
Founder, McLeod Media · Glasgow
Twenty years in digital, ten years buying traffic, and still in the accounts this week. Every calculator and note on this site comes out of live client work, which is the only reason to trust a number on a page like this.