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Google Ads Break-Even Calculator

Google will happily sell you clicks at any price; whether those clicks make money depends on numbers Google does not know — your conversion rates and margin. This calculator turns them into the figure that should govern your bidding: the maximum CPC at which a sale still makes a profit.

Profit from repeat purchases beyond the first order. Leave at 0 to judge on the first order alone.

At a glance

What it does, what it reads, what it cannot see

Every tool on this site states its scope in the same six lines, so you know what a result means before you act on it.

You enter
Cost per click, two conversion rates, order value, margin and optional lifetime gross profit
You get
Clicks and cost per sale, profit per sale, and the maximum CPC that still breaks even, with and without lifetime value
It reads
Nothing beyond the form
It cannot see
Whether your conversion tracking is right; if it is broken, every number here is wrong
It takes
Instant
Worked example

This tool’s own output on a fictional business

Generated by the tool at build time
Inputs
CPC £1.80 · 5% visitor-to-lead · 25% lead-to-sale · £450 order · 60% margin · £400 further lifetime gross profit
80Clicks per sale
£36Cost per lead
£144Cost per sale
£270Gross profit per sale
£3.38Max CPC, first order only
£8.38Max CPC, with lifetime value

How to read it

At £1.80 a click and these conversion rates a sale costs £144 against £270 of gross profit, so the campaign is profitable on the first order and the maximum bid that still breaks even is £3.38. Counting the £400 of later gross profit lifts the ceiling to £8.38, which is the number to use when a competitor is outbidding you on the first order. The two conversion rates are the assumptions to check first; both come from your own tracking, and if that tracking is broken every figure here is wrong.

Meadowbank Dental is a fictional practice written for these examples: the result above is what this tool’s code produces on that page, regenerated whenever the site is built, and is not a real business’s data.

How it works

What this tool measures, and what it leaves alone

Read this before you act on a result. Every tool here states its method and its limits in the same breath.

Why max CPC is the number that matters

Chained conversion rates decide everything: at a 10% visitor-to-lead rate and 25% lead-to-sale rate, one sale needs 40 clicks — so a £2 CPC means £80 to buy one customer. Whether that is good depends only on your gross profit per sale, and repeat business raises the ceiling: a customer who returns for years can justify a CPC that looks reckless on the first order alone.

The practical use: if your calculated max CPC is below what clicks cost in your market, do not conclude "ads don’t work" — fix the conversion rates first. Doubling a landing page’s conversion rate halves the effective cost of every customer, which no amount of bid tweaking can match.

Questions

Common questions

What is a typical conversion rate for a local business site?

Visitor-to-enquiry rates of 2–5% are common for local service pages, with well-built dedicated landing pages reaching 10%+. If you do not know yours, GA4 with proper event tracking will tell you within a month — and knowing it is worth more than any benchmark.

Related

Free tools that go with this one

Each one measures rather than guesses, works without an account, and says so when something cannot be measured.

Marketing ROI

Most small businesses judge marketing on revenue, which quietly flatters every campaign — because revenue ignores what the goods and the marketing cost.

Max CAC

"How much should I spend on marketing?" is really "how much can I pay for one customer and still profit?" This calculator answers it two ways — the cautious ceiling (profit on the first purchase alone) and the growth ceiling (profit across the customer lifetime) — with your target margin built in..

UTM Builder

UTM parameters tell your analytics exactly where a visitor came from — which post, which email, which leaflet QR code.

If you need more than the tool

If your affordable CPC came out below what clicks cost, the fix is conversion, not bidding — and conversion problems are precisely what the audit finds.

Free Snapshot

Not sure the findings matter? A person checks your website and sends three specific, evidenced fixes — free, no call, no obligation.

Website Revenue Audit — £295

The full picture: up to ten pages and your customer journey checked by a person, every finding evidenced, every fix written so you or your developer can do it.

Repair Sprint — £795

No developer, no time, no interest in doing it yourself? The audit plus up to twelve fixes implemented for you, with a full change log.

And when the whole system needs rebuilding — website, trust evidence, local and AI visibility together — the founder-led HighRegard Authority Transformation (£7,495, 8 weeks, application only) is the complete version.

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