RoasFloor

Break-even ROAS chart by margin and tariff

Margin down the side, duty across the top, break-even ROAS in each cell.

Product cost as a share of your selling price

What you pay the supplier per unit. Duty is charged on this, not on your price. Margin means contribution margin before duty and before ads.

Product cost as a share of your selling price: 25%
Duty rate
Margin0%10%20%30%40%50%
20%5.005.716.678.0010.0013.33
25%4.004.445.005.716.678.00
30%3.333.644.004.445.005.71
35%2.863.083.333.644.004.44
40%2.502.672.863.083.333.64
45%2.222.352.502.672.863.08
50%2.002.112.222.352.502.67
60%1.671.741.821.902.002.11

Above 4.0x, higher than the top of the published Meta and TikTok ranges

How to read it

The rows are your contribution margin before duty: what is left of a sale after product cost, freight, platform and payment fees, shipping and returns, but before any tariff and before ads. The columns are the combined duty rate on the product. Where they meet is your break-even ROAS, the return on ad spend at which a sale earns exactly nothing.

Take a product with a 40% margin whose supplier cost is 25% of the selling price. With no duty the floor is 2.50x. At 30% duty the tariff takes 7.5 points of margin, leaving 32.5%, and the floor rises to 3.08x. If the same product cost a third of its price instead, the duty would take more and the floor would be 3.33x. That is why the chart asks for your cost share: the same tariff hurts cheap-to-make products less.

The arithmetic behind every cell is one line:

1 ÷ (margin − duty rate × cost share)

Shaded cells are floors above 4.0x. Few Meta or TikTok campaigns return that much, so a product that lands there usually needs a higher price, a cheaper origin or a bigger basket before ads can work. The channel benchmarks explain where that line comes from and how loose the published figures are.

Which duty rate applies to you

US duty on a product is several layers added together: the normal tariff rate for its HTS code, plus any Section 301 duty for its origin. A knit cotton tee from China carries 36.5% combined in 2026, between the 30% and 40% columns. The import tariff calculator gives the combined rate for your origin and category, and the tariff impact study runs ten product categories through the same math.

What the chart assumes

  • Duty is charged on the supplier price only (the customs value). If you pay separately for packing before import, that is dutiable too, and your real floor is slightly higher.
  • Duty is the only thing that changes across a row. Freight, fees and returns are already inside the margin you start from.
  • Margins and costs are shares of the selling price, so the chart works at any price point.
  • Every cell is computed by the same engine that runs the break-even ROAS calculator, at build time. None of the numbers are typed by hand.

For one SKU with its real costs, use the calculator. The chart is for comparing products, origins and price points at a glance.

Use this chart

You are welcome to cite or link to this chart in articles, course material and resource pages. No permission needed.

Citation

RoasFloor. "Break-Even ROAS Chart by Margin and Tariff." Updated 2026-09-26. https://break-even-roas-calculator.com/break-even-roas-chart

Link

<a href="https://break-even-roas-calculator.com/break-even-roas-chart">Break-even ROAS chart by margin and tariff</a> (RoasFloor)

Next steps

Sources

Chart updated 2026-09-26. Duty rates last checked 2026-09-03; channel benchmark ranges last reviewed 2026-08-22. Full workings on the methodology page. Benchmark sources: TrueProfit — What's a Good ROAS in 2026; EcomCalcTools — Ecommerce ROAS Benchmarks 2026 by Channel; Hawky — What Is a Good ROAS for Ecommerce, 2026 Benchmarks.