The Real Profit Calculator
See your true unit economics after every cost. ROAS alone is a vanity metric. This tool reveals your real profit per order, lifetime customer value, breakeven CPA, and the ROAS you actually need.
Order Economics
Your average cart value at checkout
Sales tax as a percentage of order value
What % of your products are returned
Margins & Costs
Revenue minus cost of goods sold
Shipping, packaging, handling per order
Customer Behavior
What % of customers make a repeat purchase
Number of repeat purchases per repurchasing customer
Enter your numbers and click Calculate
to see the truth behind your ROAS
How do you calculate real ecommerce profit per order?
Real profit per order is what remains after cost of goods, taxes, returns, and fulfillment. Start with average order value, subtract taxes and expected returns, apply your gross margin, then subtract fulfillment cost. Add repeat purchases to get profit per customer, which sets your breakeven CPA and the ROAS you need to be profitable.
Roughly 18% of ecommerce margin is commonly hidden by taxes, returns, and fulfillment that revenue-based ROAS never shows.
The formula
Avg Order Value (post tax and returns)
AOV x (1 - tax %) x (1 - return rate %)
Profit per Order
(Gross Margin x Avg Order post tax and returns) - Fulfillment Cost
Profit per Customer (LTV)
Profit per Order + (Profit per Order x repeat %) x repeat frequency
Breakeven ROAS
AOV / Profit per Customer
Worked example
- Average order value
- $80
- Tax
- 8%
- Return rate
- 10%
- Gross margin
- 60%
- Fulfillment per order
- $8
Order value after tax and returns is about $66, giving roughly $32 profit per order before repeat purchases. Adding repeat customers raises profit per customer and lowers the ROAS you need to be profitable.
Ecommerce unit economics benchmarks
| Metric | Typical healthy range |
|---|---|
| Gross margin (DTC) | 60% to 80% |
| Return rate | 5% to 15% |
| Repeat purchase rate | 20% to 40% |
| Contribution margin per order | 20% to 35% of AOV |
Ranges vary by category. Use them as a sanity check, not a target.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good profit margin for ecommerce?
A gross margin of 60% to 80% is common for direct-to-consumer brands, but the number that matters is contribution margin after returns and fulfillment, which is usually 20% to 35% of order value.
What is breakeven ROAS?
Breakeven ROAS is the return on ad spend at which advertising profit is exactly zero. It equals average order value divided by profit per customer. Anything above it is profit, anything below it loses money.
Why is my real profit lower than my ROAS suggests?
Revenue-based ROAS ignores cost of goods, taxes, returns, and fulfillment. Once those are removed, real margin is often much lower than the top-line ROAS a dashboard reports.
How do repeat purchases change the math?
Repeat orders raise profit per customer, which lowers your breakeven CPA and lets you bid more aggressively to acquire customers while staying profitable.
Benchmarks and formulas last reviewed Q2 2026. Ad Prophet analyzes accounts spending $30K+/month on Google Ads.