PPC Break-Even Calculator

What CPC can you actually afford to pay?

Enter your campaign’s CPC and conversion economics to see if you’re actually profitable — and the maximum CPC you can afford before every click starts costing you money. Use it to set bid ceilings, sanity-check vendor proposals, and figure out which lever (CPC, CR, AOV, or margin) to fix first.

Campaign

$

What you pay the ad platform per click.

Optional
%

Optional. Used to compute CPM.

Conversion

%

Share of clicks that turn into a sale.

$

Average revenue per conversion.

Economics

%

Percent of AOV left after COGS, fees, and shipping.

Display

Losing money — cut CPC or fix conversion.

Current break-even CPC is $0.96. Either get CPC under that, raise CR, or improve AOV/margin.

Profit per click
-$1.54
Revenue $2.40 × 40% margin − CPC
Break-even CPC
$0.96
Max you can pay per click before losing money.
Actual ROAS
0.96×
Revenue / spend.
Required ROAS
2.50×
1 / margin. Beat this to be profitable.
Margin of safety
-160.4%
Required CR to break even
7.81%
CPM
Add CTR to compute.

Profit per click vs CPC

How profit changes as your CPC moves. The break-even line is where profit hits zero.

-$4.04-$2.79-$1.54-$0.29$0.96$0.00$1.00$2.00$3.00$4.00$5.00break-evenmax CPCyou are here

What if conversion rate improved?

Even small CR lifts move the needle hard. This is why pre-testing creatives matters more than bidding harder.

CR changeNew CRProfit per clickvs now
Current3.00%-$1.54
+10%3.30%-$1.444+$0.096
+25%3.75%-$1.30+$0.24
+50%4.50%-$1.06+$0.48
How break-even is calculated
Revenue per click
AOV × conversion rate
Gross profit per click
AOV × conversion rate × gross margin
Profit per click
(AOV × CR × margin) − CPC
Break-even CPC
AOV × CR × margin
Required CR to break even
CPC / (AOV × margin)
Required ROAS
1 / margin
Margin of safety
(break-even CPC − CPC) / break-even CPC

These are gross-margin economics. They don’t include fixed costs, returns, or LTV from repeat purchases — so a thin positive number here is still risky.

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