Media buying

Campaign ROI & breakeven

Spend, funnel and payout model in — revenue, profit, ROI and the breakeven CPC and CPA out.

Spend & funnel

Ad spend

Average CPC

Click → registration8%

Registration → FTD30%

Payout

CPA per FTD

Result

ROI

—

Profit

—

Clicks—

Registrations—

FTDs—

Your cost per FTD—

Revenue—

Breakeven CPC—

Breakeven cost per FTD—

Single-cohort, steady-funnel model. It ignores time value (RevShare arrives over months), payment for invalid traffic, chargebacks, holdback periods and the fact that CVR usually drops as you scale spend. Use it to sanity-check a plan.

From spend to profit, and the breakeven points

This calculator runs a media-buying campaign forward from what you spend to what you keep. You enter the budget and the funnel — clicks, registrations, first-time deposits, average deposit and the revenue you expect per depositor — and it returns gross revenue, profit, ROI and ROAS, plus the two numbers that matter most for optimisation: the breakeven cost per click and the breakeven cost per first-time depositor. Below those thresholds the campaign is profitable; above them it is burning money regardless of how good the creative looks.

Get the revenue-per-depositor input right

The output is only as good as your revenue estimate. For a CPA affiliate deal it is simply the CPA payout. For RevShare or for an operator running its own acquisition, it is the lifetime value of a depositor over the period you are measuring — model that separately with the player LTV tool and feed the result in here. Padding it with optimism is how campaigns look profitable on a spreadsheet and lose money in the account. The calculator also assumes your funnel rates hold at the volume you plan to buy, which is often not true as you scale a source.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between ROI and ROAS?

ROAS is revenue divided by ad spend — a 3.0 ROAS means three units of revenue per unit spent. ROI is profit divided by spend and is always lower because it subtracts the spend and other costs first. A 3.0 ROAS can still be a negative ROI once all costs are counted.

What does the breakeven CPC tell me?

The maximum you can pay per click and still break even, given your funnel conversion rates and revenue per depositor. If the traffic source charges more than that, the campaign loses money before you optimise anything else.

What should I put for revenue per depositor?

For a CPA deal, the CPA payout. For RevShare or first-party acquisition, the depositor's lifetime value over your measurement window — model it with the player LTV tool. Do not use the first deposit amount; most of the value comes later.

Why is my real ROI worse than this projection?

Usually one of: funnel conversion drops as you scale a source, revenue per depositor was optimistic, or costs the model does not include (tools, team, payment fees, chargebacks) eat the margin. Re-run with conservative rates and compare.

Does it account for the payback period?

Not directly — it compares total spend to total revenue over the window you model. On a RevShare campaign the revenue arrives over months, so a positive projected ROI can still mean weeks of negative cash flow. The player LTV tool shows the payback period.

Can I use it for a whole account, not one campaign?

Yes — enter the aggregate spend and funnel. Just remember blended numbers hide the mix of a few great campaigns and several losing ones, which is exactly what you want to break out when optimising.

Where do bonus costs fit?

If you run acquisition bonuses, subtract their net cost from revenue per depositor before entering it, or add them as a cost line if the tool provides one. Ignoring bonus cost is a common reason projections overstate ROI.

Is my campaign data stored?

No. The projection runs entirely in your browser; nothing you enter is transmitted or saved.

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