Contribution Margin Calculator
Calculate contribution margin per order in euros and percent, and derive the break-even ROAS your paid channels need to clear to stay profitable.
Contribution Margin Calculator
A tool that returns contribution margin in € and % per order from AOV, COGS, shipping, payment fees, and marketing cost.
A contribution margin calculator tells you how many euros each order actually leaves on the table after every variable cost — product, fulfilment, payment processing, and acquisition. It is the number that decides whether scaling paid traffic makes you money or quietly burns it.
For an online store, the calculation pulls together five inputs you already track: average order value, cost of goods sold, shipping cost, payment processing percentage, and marketing cost per order. The output is a per-order euro figure, a percentage of revenue, and — most usefully — the break-even ROAS your ads need to clear before a campaign is profit-neutral.
Contribution margin & break-even ROAS
Average order value
$
Gross revenue per order, excluding VAT.
COGS per order
$
Landed product cost: manufacturing + inbound freight + duties.
Shipping & fulfilment cost
$
Pick & pack + outbound carrier cost. Net of any shipping revenue collected.
Payment processing
%
Blended gateway fee. Shopify Payments + PayPal mix usually lands 2.2–3.0%.
Marketing cost per order
$
Total paid ad spend ÷ orders attributed. Roughly CAC for a single-purchase brand.
Contribution margin per order
$26.13
Contribution margin %
34.8%
Break-even ROAS
1.7 x
Break-even ROAS here is the ad-spend-only break-even: the revenue multiple ads must produce to cover product, shipping, and payment fees. It does not account for fixed costs (rent, salaries, software). Use it as the floor below which scaling spend is value-destructive.
Three numbers, one decision. Contribution margin in euros tells you how much each order pays toward fixed cost and profit. Margin percent lets you compare SKUs and channels on equal footing. Break-even ROAS is the line every paid campaign must clear.
Most stores under-track the marketing-per-order input. If you only look at gross margin (AOV − COGS), the numbers look great — 60% is common in apparel and beauty. Subtract shipping, fees, and real blended CAC, and that 60% often lands at 15-25%.
The formula behind the calculator
Contribution Margin (€) = AOV − COGS − Shipping − (AOV × Processing %) − Marketing per Order
AOV
Average order value
Gross revenue per order, ex-VAT, after any discounts applied at checkout.
COGS
Cost of goods sold
Landed product cost — manufacturing plus inbound freight and duties.
Shipping
Outbound fulfilment
Pick, pack, and carrier cost per order, net of any shipping revenue collected.
Processing %
Payment processor fee
Blended rate across your payment mix; usually 2.2-3.0% for European Shopify stores.
Marketing per Order
Acquisition cost per order
Total paid spend divided by attributed orders. Equivalent to CAC for single-purchase brands.
A beauty SKU sells at €75 AOV with €22 landed COGS, €7 outbound shipping, a 2.5% blended gateway fee, and €18 of paid acquisition per order.
AOV: €75.00
COGS: €22.00
Shipping: €7.00
Processing fee (2.5% × €75): €1.88
Marketing per order: €18.00
→ €26.13 contribution margin per order (34.8%)
Every order contributes €26.13 toward fixed cost and profit. With marketing already absorbed, paid campaigns are clearing break-even comfortably — the brand has room to push spend until CAC rises by another ~€26 before unit economics flip.
Break-even ROAS is derived by re-arranging the same equation. It answers: what revenue multiple on ad spend covers the non-marketing variable cost of fulfilling the order? Algebraically, it is AOV ÷ (AOV − COGS − Shipping − Fees).
Note this is the ad-spend break-even, not the business break-even. Fixed costs — rent, salaries, software, the Klaviyo bill — sit downstream of contribution margin. A campaign hitting break-even ROAS pays for the order but nothing else, so plan a real target above it.
What good looks like by vertical
Typical contribution margin and break-even ROAS by e-commerce vertical (post-marketing, mid-AOV brands)
| Vertical | Gross margin | Contribution margin % | Break-even ROAS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apparel & accessories | 55-65% | 20-30% | 1.6-1.9x |
| Beauty & skincare | 65-75% | 25-35% | 1.4-1.7x |
| Supplements & wellness | 70-80% | 30-40% | 1.3-1.5x |
| Home & furniture | 40-50% | 10-18% | 2.0-2.5x |
| Consumer electronics | 20-30% | 3-8% | 3.5-5.0x |
| Food & beverage (subscription) | 50-60% | 15-25% | 1.8-2.2x |
Two patterns jump out. High-margin verticals (beauty, supplements) can absorb sloppy CAC and still print money — which is why they dominate paid social. Low-margin verticals (electronics, furniture) need a 3-5x ROAS just to survive, so they win on organic, email, and repeat purchase.
If your contribution margin sits well below the vertical band, the leak is usually one of three places: discount depth (effective AOV lower than nameplate), shipping subsidy (free shipping below true cost), or CAC drift over the last 90 days as Meta CPMs climbed.
How to use this in weekly decisions
Run the calculator at the SKU level, not just the store level. Blended numbers hide the SKUs that lose money on every paid order — typically high-COGS bundles and heavy items where shipping eats the margin. Kill or reprice those before scaling spend.
Pair the output with your Marketing ROI Calculator: contribution margin sets the floor (break-even ROAS), marketing ROI sets the target (the ROAS that hits your profit goal). The gap between the two is your campaign headroom.
Recalculate monthly. AOV drifts with promo cadence, COGS moves with FX and freight, and CAC rarely sits still. A stale margin model is how brands wake up at the end of Q4 wondering where the cash went.
The gross-margin trap
If your accountant quotes a 62% margin and your bank account disagrees, you're looking at gross margin (AOV − COGS) instead of contribution margin. Gross margin ignores shipping, payment fees, and the biggest line item in DTC: paid acquisition. Always model the full variable stack before you commit to a media budget.
Frequently asked questions
Gross margin only subtracts COGS from revenue. Contribution margin subtracts every variable cost — COGS, shipping, payment processing, and acquisition. For an online store, contribution margin is the honest number; gross margin flatters performance by 20-40 percentage points.
The Contribution Margin Calculator tells you the floor a campaign must clear to break even. The Marketing ROI Calculator tells you whether a campaign hit your profit target. Use this one to set the break-even ROAS; use ROI to grade actual performance against goal.
Break-even ROAS = AOV ÷ (AOV − COGS − Shipping − Payment fees). It is the revenue multiple ad spend must generate to cover non-marketing variable costs. In the calculator above this comes out automatically once you fill in AOV, COGS, shipping, and processing percentage.
Yes — uplift COGS by your effective return rate. If your stated COGS is €20 and 15% of orders are returned with the product unsellable, model COGS at roughly €23. Apparel and furniture brands ignoring this typically over-state contribution margin by 5-10 percentage points.
Those are fixed costs and sit below contribution margin. Contribution margin is per-order; fixed costs are per-month. To get to operating profit, multiply contribution margin per order by monthly orders, then subtract fixed costs. The calculator stops at contribution margin because that's the per-order decision unit.
Raising AOV improves contribution margin disproportionately because COGS, shipping, and CAC scale slower than revenue. A €10 AOV bump on a €75 order typically adds €8 of contribution margin — far more leverage than equivalent CAC cuts. Bundles and upsells are the standard plays.
No — use paid acquisition cost only. Organic, email, and SMS revenue belongs in the blended margin picture but isn't a per-order variable cost in the same sense. If you mix them in, you'll under-state break-even ROAS for paid campaigns and over-spend.
Monthly at minimum, weekly during peak. AOV drifts with promotions, COGS moves with FX and freight, and blended CAC swings with channel mix. A quarterly model is already stale by the time you act on it.
You are losing money on every order. The fix is rarely 'more volume.' Audit in this order: discount depth, shipping subsidy, CAC by channel, and SKU mix. Kill the worst-performing campaigns first; they're usually responsible for the bulk of the bleed.
For the first order, yes. For repeat orders, CAC drops to near zero, so contribution margin jumps. Model subscription brands at two levels: acquisition order (with full CAC) and recurring order (zero CAC). Break-even ROAS only applies to the acquisition order.
Track CAC, channels, and funnel conversion in one place
Metricuno connects ad spend, funnel events, and revenue so you can see CAC by channel, cohort, and campaign — without stitching together five tools.