Free calculator
The lowest ROAS your ads can report before they start losing money, worked out on what an order leaves after goods, shipping, payment fees and returns, and measured on the purchase value the way Shopify reports it to Meta, with VAT in and without.
Break-even ROAS, VAT included, as Meta counts it
2,65x
Without VAT
2,22x
if your account counts it so
Break-even MER
2,00x
on your own net revenue
Keep 10%
3,31x
the ROAS to aim for
What the customer pays
What the order costs you
What you want left
Break-even is a floor, not a target: at it, the ads work and the month earns nothing from them.
↑ ↓ to nudge, Shift for ten. Commas or dots both work.
Shopify reports the purchase to Meta with VAT and shipping in it, so 2,65x on Meta is break-even; measured without VAT the same order breaks even at 2,22x. Refunds lift both: the platform keeps counting a refunded sale, the margin does not.
Below this the ads lose money on every order they buy. One order leaves €24,48 after goods, shipping, fees and returns, which is the most it can cost to win.
An estimate from flat rates. In nouz every order is priced from the costs of its own day.
A break-even ROAS calculator finds the lowest return on ad spend at which advertising stops losing money: the purchase value an ad platform reports, divided by what an order leaves after goods, shipping, payment fees and returns. This one shows it with VAT included, as Shopify reports purchases to Meta, and without, for accounts that count it that way.
The method
An ad platform divides the purchase value it saw by what the ads cost. The break-even ROAS has to be built the same way: that same purchase value, divided by what the order leaves once the goods, the parcel, the payment fee and the returns are paid. At that ROAS the ad spend equals the margin and the profit after advertising is exactly zero.
The purchase value Shopify reports to Meta is the order total with VAT and shipping in it. A margin worked out without VAT and held against that figure sets the floor too low by the whole VAT rate: at 19%, a store that thinks it breaks even at 2,22 actually needs 2,65.
Returns push it higher still. The platform counted the sale at checkout and never takes it back, but a refund returns the revenue and its VAT, and only the goods come back to the shelf. The parcel and the fee stay spent.
nouz works this out for every product on Insights, Products, with and without VAT, beside the breakeven CAC, from the product’s own orders, returns and costs.
Where it goes wrong
Each of these makes a campaign look safer than it is, and they stack.
One divided by your margin is the shortcut every calculator teaches, and it is only right when the margin is measured against the purchase value the platform reports. Measured against the price without VAT, it sets the floor too low by the whole VAT rate.
On the figures above, ignoring a 10% refund rate puts the floor at 2,31 instead of 2,65. Every campaign between the two looks profitable and is not.
A margin after the goods alone still has to pay for the parcel and the payment fee before it can pay for an ad. Leave them out and the break-even ROAS is the one for a store that ships for free and is never charged a fee.
At break-even the ads worked and earned nothing. Aim above it by the profit you want to keep: keeping 10% of net revenue on the figures above needs 3,31, not 2,65.
Worked example
The calculator’s starting order: a €59,90 basket and €4,90 shipping at 19% VAT, goods costing €18,50, a €6,40 parcel, 1,9% plus €0,25 to the gateway, and 10% of sales refunded.
After returns and VAT the order is worth €49,01, and it leaves €24,48 once the goods, the parcel and the fee are paid. That is the most it can cost to win.
Meta has to report at least 2,65 for these ads to pay for themselves, because the value it reports still holds the VAT and the refunds. A target of 2,22, the figure without VAT, would lose money on every order it bought.
Across the whole account the same floor is the break-even MER, 2,00: the net revenue every euro of advertising has to bring in, from your own books.
In the app
A calculator works from flat rates you type once. nouz prices every single order from the cost rules that were in force on that order's own date, and rebuilds the same statement every night from your own orders and your own ad spend.
More calculators
Each one is a different question about the same statement. All 32 are free, and none of them asks you to sign up.
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The long version
Want the long version rather than the arithmetic?
The floorMER 1,90on one store's own margins9 min readSetting an ad budget from your margin, not from last monthMost budgets are last month's number plus a feeling. Build one from contribution instead: what the orders leave, what the fixed block needs, what is left to spend.Setting an ad budget from your marginOn Insights, Products, nouz works out CM2 for every product from your own orders, returns and costs, and beside it the breakeven CAC and the breakeven ROAS, with VAT and without.