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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.

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.

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

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

Want this done for you — with evidence?

The free tools show you what a machine can measure. The Website Revenue Audit adds what only a person can: your real customer journey, verified findings and a prioritised plan across up to ten pages.

Order the audit — £295 Get the free snapshot first

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