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Break-even ROAS calculator

The ROAS a campaign has to hit before it earns anything — with the store's commission, refunds, and your variable costs taken out. Runs in your browser; nothing is sent anywhere.

Your margin inputs

Everything that comes out of a dollar of gross revenue before it's yours.

%

30% standard. 15% under the small-business programs and on subscriptions after year one. 0% if you sell on web.

%

Share of gross revenue later refunded.

% of gross

Payment processing off-store, per-user infrastructure, support. Leave 0 if unsure.

% of spend

0 gives pure break-even. 20 means every $1 of spend should return $0.20 of profit.

Results

Break-even ROAS (gross revenue)

1.52x

Compare this to the ROAS your ad platforms report — they use gross.

Break-even ROAS (proceeds)

1.07x

Compare this to ROAS computed on revenue after the store's cut.

Contribution margin per $1 gross
65.6%
Target ROAS at your profit goal (gross)
1.83x
Target ROAS at your profit goal (proceeds)
1.28x

On $10,000 of spend you need $15,244 of gross revenue to break even, and $18,293 to hit your profit target.

The formula

Contribution margin = (1 − refund rate) × (1 − store commission) − other variable costs
Break-even ROAS     = 1 ÷ contribution margin

For a subscription app on the App Store with 2% refunds and no other variable costs, the margin is 0.98 × 0.70 ≈ 68.6% and break-even ROAS on gross revenue is about 1.46x. At the 15% commission rate it drops to 1.20x. That 0.26x difference is the whole argument for tracking which of your subscribers are in year two.

Why two numbers

Every ad platform reports ROAS on gross revenue, because gross is what the purchase event carries. Your subscription platform and your finance team work in proceeds. A break-even figure is only useful next to a ROAS calculated on the same basis, so the calculator gives both and labels them. Most “we're profitable on Meta but losing money overall” conversations are a gross-versus-proceeds mismatch, not an attribution problem.

Break-even is a floor, not a target

Campaigns that clear break-even by a hair still lose money once creative production, tooling, and the failed tests that found the winners are counted. Set the profit-on-spend input to what the business actually needs and use the target ROAS, not the break-even, as the pause threshold. For subscription apps, pair this with the LTV and payback calculator — a D30 ROAS below break-even can be fine when D180 payback is not.

Common questions

What is break-even ROAS?
Break-even ROAS is the return on ad spend at which a campaign neither makes nor loses money after variable costs. It equals 1 divided by your contribution margin. With a 60% margin, break-even ROAS is about 1.67x.
Why does the app store commission matter for ROAS?
Ad platforms report gross revenue — the price the user paid. Apple and Google keep 15–30% of that before it reaches you. A campaign showing 1.5x in Ads Manager is returning roughly 1.05x in proceeds at a 30% commission, which is barely above break-even, not comfortably above it.
Should I calculate break-even on gross revenue or proceeds?
Either, as long as you compare it to a ROAS calculated the same way. Use the gross figure against platform dashboards; use the proceeds figure against ROAS computed from RevenueCat, your store payouts, or your finance reports.
What is a good target ROAS above break-even?
Enough to fund the campaigns that fail and the team that runs them. Many app teams set the target at 20–50% profit on spend, which with a 60% margin means roughly 2.0–2.5x on gross. Subscription apps often accept sub-break-even ROAS at D30 and judge on D90 or D180 payback instead.

Related terms: break-even ROAS, proceeds, ROAS.