What is a good ROAS?
Short answer: a good ROAS is anything comfortably above your break-even ROAS, which is 1 ÷ gross margin. At 50% margin you break even at 2×, so 3–4× is healthy. At 20% margin you break even at 5×, and even a 4× loses money.
“What is a good ROAS?” is the most common question in paid media and also the most misleading, because the honest answer is “it depends — mostly on your margin.” A number that is fantastic for one business is a slow bleed for another.
Start with break-even ROAS
Break-even ROAS is simply 1 divided by your gross margin. It is the point where the gross profit from your ad-driven revenue exactly equals what you spent on ads. Anything above it is profit; anything below it is loss. Find this number first — every “good ROAS” benchmark you read online is useless without it.
Margin-to-target cheat sheet
- 20% margin → break-even 5× → target 6–7×
- 40% margin → break-even 2.5× → target 3–4×
- 60% margin → break-even 1.7× → target 2.5–3×
The ROAS / MER calculator computes your break-even ROAS automatically from your margin.
Why you should not over-optimize
A sky-high ROAS feels like winning, but it usually means you are only capturing the cheapest, most obvious conversions and leaving growth on the table. The profitable zone is above break-even but not so high that you are starving the top of the funnel.
FAQ
Is 4× ROAS good?
Only if your break-even ROAS is below 4×. At thin margins, 4× can lose money.
New to ROAS?
Read what is ROAS first.