POAS Calculator: see what your campaigns actually make in profit
Most Google Ads accounts measure ROAS: revenue per pound spent. ROAS hides whether the revenue was profitable. POAS (Profit on Ad Spend) measures profit per pound spent, factoring in cost of goods, returns, and fulfilment. Enter your numbers below to see both, and the gap between them.
Total Google Ads-attributed revenue over the period
Average % of revenue spent producing the product
Pick, pack, ship, packaging. As % of revenue
Average % of orders refunded
Total Google Ads spend over the period
Contribution estimate, not net profit. Only the costs entered are included; see assumptions below.
A POAS of 1.84× means each £1 of ad spend returns £1.84 of contribution before advertising, leaving £0.84 after the ad cost. Whether that is enough depends on how much overhead sits below this line, and on the SKU-level distribution behind the blended figure.
What this calculation includes and excludes
- This is a scenario based only on the costs you entered. It uses contribution before advertising as the numerator.
- It excludes payment processing fees, VAT, discounts and promotions, the handling and restocking cost of returns, labour, software and warehousing, so it is not net profit.
- Revenue is taken as entered, so any discounting must already be reflected in it, and the return rate is deducted as lost revenue only.
- There is no universal target: the right level depends on your own cost structure, fixed costs and what each product is there to do.
Get a commercial second opinion (free)
Send your numbers over and a founder will read them against your account: where the margin is actually going, which products are carrying the spend, and what we would change first. No benchmark scoring, no dataset comparison, just a direct read of your figures.
What is POAS and why does it matter?
POAS (Profit on Ad Spend) is the only paid-media efficiency metric that survives a P&L reconciliation. ROAS reports revenue per pound spent, which makes a high-return-rate fashion campaign look identical to a low-return-rate supplements campaign even though one quietly loses money. POAS strips out cost of goods, fulfilment, and refunded orders so the number you see in Google Ads is the number that lands in your bank.
For the full pillar on how POAS, MER, and ROAS compare, and how to feed POAS back into Google Ads as a bidding signal: read POAS vs MER vs ROAS: the ecommerce metrics that actually matter.
When ROAS lies
Optimising to ROAS scales spend on loss-leader SKUs. Smart Bidding chases revenue, not contribution. If a £30 SKU at 15% margin converts well, the bidder pushes more spend behind it, and the more it sells, the more money you lose. POAS rebalances bids towards the products that actually fund the business.
ROAS hides margin compression from supplier increases. When COGS quietly moves from 38% to 46% over a year, ROAS dashboards look identical. POAS drops in lockstep with the squeeze, giving finance a leading indicator before the quarter closes.
ROAS treats refunded orders as wins. Most attribution windows credit the click that drove the order, not the refund that followed three weeks later. A 32% returner category looks profitable on ROAS and bleeds cash on POAS.
How JudeLuxe applies POAS at SKU level
This calculator gives you a blended POAS: a single number across the account. JudeLuxe runs POAS at SKU level, mapping every product in your catalogue to one of five commercial jobs (Scale, Profit, Protect, Recovery, Gateway), then bidding accordingly. The framework is published as BOI® (Bid On Intent) and detailed in the SKU Jobs Framework.
If you want us to run the SKU-level version on your account, request a how we audit accounts or read how it integrates with Performance Max and Google Shopping.
FAQ
What is POAS?
POAS (Profit on Ad Spend) measures profit generated per pound of ad spend. Unlike ROAS, it factors in cost of goods, returns, and fulfilment: so it tells you whether a campaign actually made money, not just generated revenue.
How do I calculate POAS?
Subtract cost of goods, returns cost, and fulfilment cost from revenue. Divide the result by ad spend. That's POAS. Formula: POAS = (Revenue − COGS − Returns − Fulfilment) / Ad Spend.
What's a good POAS for ecommerce?
Depends on stage and category. A POAS above 1.5× usually indicates healthy commercial performance. Every £1 of ad spend produces £0.50+ of profit. Below 1.0× and you're losing money on ad-driven sales. Above 2.5× usually indicates strong unit economics or margin-targeted bidding.
Is POAS better than ROAS?
For ecommerce brands with variable product margins, yes. ROAS measures revenue per pound spent; POAS measures profit. A 5× ROAS on a 20% margin product breaks even at best. POAS would show you that immediately. ROAS hides it.
How is break-even ROAS calculated?
1 ÷ (1 − cost % of revenue). If your COGS + fulfilment + returns equal 54% of revenue, your break-even ROAS is 1 ÷ 0.46 = 2.17×. Below that, ad-driven revenue loses money even before measuring ad spend.
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