Canonical formula calculator
RETURN ON AD SPEND
How many dollars of revenue you generate for every dollar you spend on ads — the unforgiving truth about your marketing.
Total revenue attributed to your ad campaigns in the period.
Total amount spent on advertising in the same period.
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Add context for case suggestions
Optional — helps us match this calculation against relevant case studies (coming soon).
What this tells you
ROAS tells you how much revenue you generate for every dollar of ad spend. A ROAS of 4 means you make $4 for every $1 spent on ads. The break-even ROAS depends on your margins — for most businesses you need ROAS above 3 to be profitable after accounting for cost of goods, fulfillment, and overhead.
When to use it
Calculate ROAS per channel, per campaign, per month. The numbers are not meaningful in isolation; they only matter compared to your break-even and to alternatives. A 3x ROAS on a scaling channel is great if your break-even is 2x. A 5x ROAS on a tiny channel is unimportant if you can only spend $500 a month there.
What it doesn’t tell you
ROAS does not account for the time lag between spend and revenue, attribution accuracy, or what your customers go on to do after the first purchase. A 2x ROAS today might be a 4x lifetime ROAS once you account for repeat purchases and word-of-mouth. Use ROAS as a directional signal, not gospel.
Coming soon
Cases, plays, and benchmarks for this metric will appear here as the Moonshot knowledge libraries grow. For now: log in to track your number over time and Moonshot will surface trend warnings when the substrate fills in.