Free tool · DTC brands on Meta
The ROAS Reality Check
Blended ROAS tells you whether your store makes money. It can't tell you whether buying a new customer on Meta pays. Two minutes with your numbers gives you both answers.
All the math runs in your browser. Nothing is stored.
Ads Manager and Shopify can report in different currencies. Convert everything to one before you type.
Enter every amount without VAT. Shelf prices and Shopify's sales figures may include it; take it out first, or every verdict below reads better than it is.
1 · One order
What one order keeps
Before any ad spend, what does an average order leave you? Shipping, fees and returns eat it quietly. Example figures are filled in; replace them with yours. Everything recalculates as you type.
$
Shopify's AOV is already after discounts. Before tax.
$%
As a share of order value.
$
Pick, pack and postage, per order shipped.
%
+
$
Published online card rates, as of October 2026.
%
Share of orders refunded, from your store's refund report. Apparel often runs 15 to 30%.
Kept per order, before ads
Contribution margin
Break-even ROAS
Break-even CPA
Where each $100 of an order goes
How this is calculated
2 · Two answers
The store, and Meta
Same 30 days, two questions. The store's question counts every order, wherever it came from. Meta's question counts only the purchases Meta bought.
The store
Does the store make money?
$
Your own store only, from every traffic source. In Shopify: Gross sales minus Discounts. Not Total sales, which already takes refunds out and adds shipping and tax. Sell on Amazon or wholesale too? Leave those out.
$
From Ads Manager, same 30 days, in your store's currency. If your ad account bills in another currency, convert it first.
Other ad spend and fixed costs (optional)
$
Google, TikTok, influencers. Leave empty if Meta is your only paid channel.
$
Team, tools, rent: costs that don't move with orders. If you also sell elsewhere, enter only this store's share.
MER
Per order, after ads
Meta
Does a new customer on Meta pay?
From Ads Manager, same 30 days, at your account's attribution setting (default: 7-day click, 1-day view). If customers take weeks to decide, Meta undercounts. Uses the Meta spend you entered for the store.
Meta's buyers spend a different amount? (optional)
$
Meta's purchase value divided by Meta purchases. Meta's figure can include shipping and tax, and it comes in your ad account's currency; take them out and convert it so it matches section 1. A discounted first order goes here too.
Meta CPA
Meta's share of revenueRoughly, the revenue Meta takes credit for
The gap
How this is calculated
3 · One customer
Does a Meta customer pay you back?
Section 2 judged the first order. This is the whole customer: what they cost, what they bring back over a year, and how fast the cash returns. The standard worth holding: a new customer's cost paid back within 30 days.
%
Of first-time buyers, the share who order again inside 30 days. A subscription renewal billed on day 30 counts.
Including the first order. 1.0 means nobody comes back.
Repeat orders and new-customer CPA (optional)
$
What a returning customer's order is worth, if it differs from your average order (refills, accessories, a subscription price).
$
What one truly new customer costs: Meta spend divided by first-time customers in Shopify's customer report, same 30 days. Left empty, we use Meta's CPA from section 2, which counts some returning buyers. Entered, it also decides section 2's Meta verdict.
30-day cash : CAC1.00 or more means paid back inside 30 days
LTGP : CAC, 12 monthsGross profit a customer brings in a year, per unit of cost to get them
How this is calculated
4 · Testing
The Coin-Flip Test
Testing more finds more winners, but only if each creative gets enough spend to prove itself. Your Meta spend and purchases from section 2 set two ceilings: how many creatives you can screen, and how many winners you can confirm.
Net-new concepts or variants launched weekly.
Screening capacityCreatives per week that can get a fair kill-or-keep audition
Confirmation capacityWinners per week you can actually crown (~50 purchases each)
Room to screen
Stretched
Over capacity
Both ceilings assume your full budget feeds testing. With scaled winners running, your practical capacity is lower.
How this is calculated
Reading a test is not the same as learning from it.
A screen tells you which creatives to kill. A confirmed winner tells you which ad won this week. Neither tells you why it won, which angle to push next, or what three months of tests have already ruled out. That is a learning system, and it is the difference between creative that compounds and creative that starts from zero every campaign.
The numbers above are the first page of that system. The rest is finding where your funnel leaks the margin this calculator just measured, and running tests that feed every result back into the next brief.
I'm David. I run Meta ads and creative strategy for DTC brands. Most recently I took a brand from $10k to around $45k a month in six months, at roughly 3x the ad spend, with blended ROAS up from 0.95 to 2.28.
If your numbers came back leaky, I'll record you a short leak-map walkthrough of your account: what I'd fix first, within 48 hours. Free, because a few of these turn into client work. That's the whole deal. No pitch either way.
Numbers came back healthy? Then the real question is whether your testing compounds week over week. Same offer, different starting point.
Screenshot your results. Reply with it wherever you found this link, and your leak map lands within 48 hours.
I record every leak map myself, so they're capped at five a week. First come, first served.
The ROAS Reality Check · David Cvetkovic
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