Amazon ACoS & TACoS calculator
Enter your Amazon PPC numbers to work out ACoS, TACoS and ROAS, then add your unit economics to see the break-even ACoS your net margin actually supports. All figures in USD.
Your PPC numbers
Total PPC spend for the period
Sales your ad report attributes to ads
All sales for the same period, from business reports
Unit economics (optional)
Break-even ACoS equals your net margin after Amazon takes its cut, not your gross margin. Fill these in and we work the net margin out for you.
What the buyer pays, before promotions
Landed cost: manufacture, freight, duty
15% in most categories. Check your category.
Fulfilment fee. Add storage separately if it is material.
Already know your net margin after fees? Enter it here and it wins.
Percentage points held back from break-even to set your target ACoS
ACoS vs TACoS
ACoS measures ad spend as a percentage of ad-attributed revenue only. TACoS measures ad spend as a percentage of all revenue, organic included. TACoS shows whether advertising is building a business or propping one up.
Fill in ad spend, ad revenue and total revenue to see results.
How the numbers are calculated
- ACoS = ad spend / ad revenue x 100
- TACoS = ad spend / total revenue x 100
- ROAS = ad revenue / ad spend
- net margin = (price - cost of goods - price x referral% - FBA fee) / price
- break-even ACoS = net margin
- break-even ROAS = 1 / net margin
- target ACoS = break-even ACoS - profit points you keep
- profit on ad sales = ad revenue x net margin - ad spend
Health bands use your margin when you supply one: healthy at or below target ACoS, watch up to break-even, loss above it. TACoS is banded the same way, healthy under half of break-even. With no margin supplied we fall back to generic bands (ACoS 25% and 40%, TACoS 10% and 20%) and the results say so.
Caveats worth reading
- Attribution window: Amazon credits a sale to a click for up to 14 days on Sponsored Products, so spend and attributed sales in the same date range do not line up exactly. ACoS on a short window reads high.
- Ad-report sales are not business-report sales. Take ad spend and ad revenue from your advertising reports, and total revenue from your business reports for the same period. Mixing the two skews TACoS.
- Returns and refunds are not deducted from attributed sales in most ad reports, so real ACoS is worse than reported by roughly your return rate.
- Net margin here covers cost of goods, referral fee and the FBA fulfilment fee. Storage, long-term storage, removals, coupons and overheads are not included, so treat break-even ACoS as a ceiling rather than a target.
- Referral fees vary by category and some have per-item minimums. Check your own fee preview rather than trusting the 15% default.
More on how we work and what we verify: how we test.
Is a high ACoS always a problem?
No. A launch campaign can run above break-even on purpose, buying rank and reviews at a known cost per unit. What tells you whether that trade is working is TACoS. If TACoS holds or falls while total revenue grows, the paid spend is pulling organic sales up with it.
The reverse is the warning sign. ACoS above break-even and TACoS rising means you are paying for sales you would otherwise be losing, with nothing compounding underneath. Cut there, and check your search term reports before you cut anywhere else.
How do you use ACoS and TACoS to manage Amazon PPC?
Use ACoS to judge whether a campaign pays for itself against your net margin, and TACoS to judge whether the advertising is building anything. Most sellers watch only ACoS, which is why they cut spend on campaigns that were quietly carrying their organic rank.
A launch might run at 50% ACoS for eight weeks. In isolation that reads badly. If TACoS holds near 12% and total revenue grows month on month, those campaigns are doing the job they were funded for by pushing the listing up in organic search.
When should you cut ad spend and when should you scale?
Cut when ACoS is above break-even and TACoS is rising, because you are paying for sales without compounding anything underneath. Scale when ACoS sits under your target and TACoS is flat or falling while revenue grows. Those two states call for opposite decisions from the same headline ACoS.
Before cutting budget, find the waste. Review your search term reports for spend on terms that never convert. That is usually a bigger win than an across-the-board bid reduction, and it does not cost you impressions on the terms that work.
Why is break-even ACoS based on net margin, not gross margin?
Because Amazon takes its cut before you see a cent. Gross margin ignores the referral fee and the FBA fulfilment fee, which together often run to a quarter of the sale price. Using gross margin as your break-even ACoS is the single most common way sellers convince themselves a losing campaign is profitable.
The calculator above derives net margin from sale price, landed cost of goods, referral fee percentage and FBA fee per unit, then shows the derivation line by line. If you already track net margin elsewhere, enter it in the override field instead.
Which tools help bring ACoS down?
Helium 10 covers keyword tracking and ACoS reporting across its suite, with bid management in Adtomic on the Diamond tier rather than Platinum, so check which plan you need before budgeting. SmartScout is the one we reach for when a high ACoS turns out to be a category or pricing problem. For the wider picture, see our guide to the best AI tools for Amazon FBA sellers, and our testing methodology.
Frequently asked questions
- What is ACoS on Amazon?
- ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales) is your ad spend divided by your ad-attributed revenue, shown as a percentage. An ACoS of 25% means you spend $25 in ads for every $100 of ad-driven sales. Lower is more efficient, but whether it is profitable depends entirely on your net margin after Amazon fees.
- What is TACoS and why does it matter?
- TACoS (Total Advertising Cost of Sales) is ad spend divided by total revenue, organic sales included. It shows how advertising affects the whole business rather than one campaign. A seller at 40% ACoS but 8% TACoS is in a stronger position than the headline suggests, because most revenue is organic.
- What is a good ACoS for Amazon PPC?
- There is no universal number. A good ACoS is one below your break-even ACoS, which equals your net margin after cost of goods, referral fee and FBA fees. If your net margin is 28%, an ACoS of 20% is profitable and an ACoS of 32% is not. Launches often run above break-even deliberately to buy rank.
- What is a good TACoS for Amazon sellers?
- Judge TACoS against your break-even ACoS rather than a fixed band. Below half of break-even is comfortable, up to break-even is workable, above it means the business as a whole is not covering its ad bill. The trend matters more than the level: falling TACoS with rising revenue means organic is picking up.
- How do I calculate break-even ACoS?
- Break-even ACoS equals your net margin after Amazon fees, not your gross margin. Take the sale price, subtract landed cost of goods, the referral fee (15% in most categories) and the FBA fulfilment fee, then divide what is left by the sale price. On a $34.99 item with $8.50 goods, a $5.25 referral fee and a $5.35 FBA fee, net profit is $15.89, giving a 45.4% net margin and a 45.4% break-even ACoS.
- Should I optimise for ACoS or TACoS?
- Use ACoS to judge campaigns and TACoS to judge the strategy. Cutting spend to force ACoS down can cost organic rank and push TACoS up over the following months. The aim is total revenue growing while TACoS stays flat or falls.
- How does ACoS relate to ROAS?
- ROAS is the inverse of ACoS: ROAS = 1 / (ACoS / 100). An ACoS of 25% is a ROAS of 4x. Break-even ROAS is 1 divided by your net margin, so a 28% net margin needs a ROAS of about 3.6x to break even. Amazon reports ACoS natively while Google Ads reports ROAS, so this calculator shows both.
- Why does my calculated ACoS differ from Seller Central?
- Attribution and timing. Amazon credits a Sponsored Products sale to a click for up to 14 days, so spend and attributed sales in the same date range do not line up. Ad reports also do not deduct returns. Pull spend and ad revenue from advertising reports, and total revenue from business reports for the same period.