📈 Business & Marketing

ROI Calculator (Marketing Campaign)

Calculate return on investment for any marketing campaign in seconds. Free online ROI calculator for US marketers and founders.

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What This Calculator Tells You

ROI (return on investment) tells you how much you gained or lost for every dollar you put in. An ROI of 50% means the investment paid back its cost plus another $0.50 per dollar; an ROI of −20% means you lost 20 cents of every dollar.

Use it to compare options that cost different amounts — two ad campaigns, a software purchase versus a new hire, or two investments — on the same scale.

What to Enter

Initial investment ($) — everything the decision cost you: ad spend plus agency fees, creative, tools and any extra staff time. Leaving out hidden costs is the fastest way to overstate ROI.
Final value / revenue ($) — what the investment brought back. For a marketing campaign, enter the gross profit it generated (revenue × your gross margin), not total revenue — otherwise you are measuring revenue ROI, which overstates the return. For an investment, enter what it is worth at the end.
Holding period (years, optional) — how long the money was tied up. Fill it in to get an annualized return you can compare across different time spans. Leave it blank for a one-off campaign and the annualized line is simply not shown.

Worked Examples

1. A Google Ads campaign (profit vs. revenue)

A US online store spends $6,500 on Google Ads plus $1,500 in agency fees — $8,000 in total. The campaign brings in $30,000 in revenue at a 40% gross margin, so it generated $12,000 in gross profit.

Enter $8,000 and $12,000 → ROI 50%, net profit $4,000.
Entering the $30,000 revenue instead would show 275% — the same campaign, wildly overstated.

2. An index-fund investment held for 4 years

$10,000 invested grows to $14,641 after 4 years.

Enter $10,000, $14,641 and 4 years → ROI 46.41%, annualized return 10.00%.
The annualized figure is what you compare with other investments, because 46% over four years is very different from 46% in one.

3. A software subscription that saves time

A team pays $3,600 a year for a scheduling tool that saves 10 hours a month. At a loaded cost of $50 an hour, that is $6,000 a year of time saved.

Enter $3,600 and $6,000 → ROI 66.67%, net benefit $2,400 a year.

How It’s Calculated

ROI (%) = ((Final Value − Initial Investment) ÷ Initial Investment) × 100. Annualized Return = ((Final ÷ Initial)^(1/years) − 1) × 100.

ROI: Return on Investment (%)

How to Read Your Result

Above 0%: the investment more than paid for itself. Whether it is good depends on what else you could have done with the money and how much risk you took.
0%: you broke even — you got your money back and nothing more.
Below 0%: you lost money. −100% means you lost all of it.
Comparing options: only compare ROIs measured over similar time periods, or compare annualized returns instead.
Next step: for campaigns, also check how long payback takes and what each customer costs with the CAC calculator.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Using revenue instead of profit. A campaign that drives $30,000 in sales at a 40% margin returned $12,000, not $30,000.
Leaving out costs. Agency fees, creative, software and staff time all belong in the investment.
Comparing different time periods. A 20% return in three months beats a 30% return over three years. Use the holding period to annualize.
Double-counting attribution. If Google, Meta and email each claim the same sale, adding their ROIs together overstates the total.
Treating the result as certain. ROI is backward-looking. Past campaign ROI is a guide, not a guarantee.

Built and maintained by GenAlpha Tools Editorial. Formula tested against known answers and edge cases · last reviewed October 2026. How we calculate · Report an error

When to Use This Calculator

Decide which marketing campaign or channel deserves more budget.
Justify a tool, hire or project to a manager or investor.
Compare investments held for different lengths of time using annualized return.
Sanity-check an agency's reported results using your own margin.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good ROI for a marketing campaign?

Any positive ROI measured on gross profit means the campaign paid for itself. Beyond that, "good" depends on your margins, how quickly the money comes back and what other uses you have for the budget. Compare campaigns against each other rather than against a universal number.

What is the difference between ROI and ROAS?

ROAS (return on ad spend) is revenue divided by ad spend, shown as a ratio such as 4:1. It ignores product costs and other expenses. ROI subtracts the cost and, done properly, uses profit. A 4:1 ROAS can still lose money if your margins are thin.

Can ROI be negative?

Yes. If the final value is less than what you put in, ROI is negative. −100% means the entire investment was lost.

Why does the annualized return differ from ROI?

Annualized return spreads the gain over the holding period using compounding, so returns over different lengths of time can be compared fairly. 46.41% over 4 years is a 10% annualized return.

Should I include my own time?

For business decisions, yes — value it at what it costs you (or what you could earn elsewhere). Ignoring time makes do-it-yourself projects look better than they are.

Do you store the values I enter?

No. All calculations happen in your browser. Your data never leaves your device.

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