Real margin after ad spend, platform fees, and tax.
Shopify plan fees ($39/$105/$399/mo) and payment processing rates (2.9%+$0.30) are based on published 2025 pricing. Tax estimates use 2025 IRS brackets and simplified state rates. Actual costs may vary. This is for estimation only.
A dropship order is profitable only if every layer leaves money on the table. The tool starts from the sale price and subtracts product cost, the platform + payment fee (Shopify's $39/$105/$399 monthly plan spread over orders, plus processing at 2.9% + $0.30 via Shopify Payments), ad spend per order, and finally tax (self-employment plus income). It also reports a breakeven ROAS — the ratio 1 ÷ (1 − (product cost + fee) ÷ sale price) — telling you how many dollars of revenue every advertising dollar must return just to break even. If per-order margin falls below ~15%, the tool flags the product as not viable.
$29.99 − $8.00 product − $1.37 fee − $5.00 ads = $15.62 before tax. Every extra $1 of ads must return ~$1.45 of revenue to stay breakeven.
Elena sells a $29.99 product that costs $8 from her supplier, on Shopify Basic ($39/mo) with Shopify Payments, running $5 of ads per order across 200 orders/month. She files single with ~$50k annual revenue.
Dropship profit = sale price minus product cost, platform fees, shipping, and ad spend. Enter your numbers to see true margin and break-even ROAS.
FreeToolHub Dropship Profit Calculator is a free browser-based tool that calculates real profit after platform fees and ads, no signup.
What is your real dropshipping margin after ads, fees, and shipping? Shopify and Etsy. Free, instant, no signup.
This calculator computes true dropshipping profitability by stacking every cost layer that naive spreadsheets miss: product cost, platform fees, payment processing, ad spend per acquisition, self-employment tax, and state tax. Enter selling price and each cost, and the tool returns net profit per order, profit margin, and the number that actually governs ad scaling — break-even ROAS, the return on ad spend at which you make exactly zero. A multi-order view projects monthly profit at your volume, and scenario fields let you test supplier price changes or CPC shifts before they hit your P&L.
New dropshippers validate product math before spending on ads — most losing stores never ran this arithmetic. Operators scaling campaigns use break-even ROAS as the hard ceiling for bids: above it you profit, below it you burn. Shopify and TikTok Shop sellers compare platforms by total fee load, not the headline commission. Dropshippers filing Schedule C use the self-employment and state tax fields to see real after-tax margins, since a 20% pre-tax margin is roughly 13% after SE tax alone. Anyone negotiating supplier prices sees instantly which cents-per-unit changes flip a product from loser to winner.
(1) Enter product cost, shipping cost, and selling price. (2) Add platform fees (percentage plus fixed), payment processing, and your average ad cost per sale. (3) Toggle self-employment and state tax to see after-tax reality. (4) Read the results: net profit per order, margin percentage, break-even ROAS computed as spend divided by gross margin, and projected monthly figures at your order volume. Sample values load a realistic scenario so you can see every field in context before entering your own.
Break-even ROAS is the ad-spend multiple at which revenue exactly covers all non-ad costs plus the ads themselves — computed as 1 divided by your gross margin after product, platform, payment, and tax costs. A product with a 25% true margin breaks even at 4.0x ROAS: spend $100, need $400 revenue just to stand still. This single number reframes every advertising decision: your 3x campaign that looks acceptable is losing money on that product, while a 3.5x campaign on a 35%-margin product is printing profit. Platforms report ROAS flatteringly because it ignores your costs; break-even ROAS converts it into truth. Scaling logic follows: bid aggressively only while actual ROAS clears break-even with headroom for variance, expect ROAS to decay as budgets scale into broader audiences, and recompute the number whenever supplier costs, platform fees, or return rates move — a 5-point margin shift swings the ceiling by nearly a full turn.
Healthy dropshipping margins run 15–30% after product cost, shipping, payment fees, and ad spend. Under 10% means one refund spike or ad-price hike wipes the month; this calculator models all four cost layers at once.
Selling price minus product cost, shipping, transaction fees (typically 2.9% + $0.30), and allocated ad cost per acquisition. A $30 sale with $12 product, $4 shipping, $1.17 fees, and $6 ads nets about $6.83.
Judge by profit, not ROAS: a 3x ROAS with 40% product cost loses money, while 2x on near-zero-cost digital goods profits. Compute your break-even ROAS — spend divided by gross margin — before scaling.
Plan 3–5x your target CPA across at least 100 clicks to gather statistically meaningful data — commonly $150–$500 per product test with a $10–$25 CPA goal.
It subtracts product cost, platform fees (Shopify: 2.9% + $0.30; Etsy: 6.5% transaction + $0.20 listing), payment processing, shipping ($3-$12 typical for ePacket), and ad spend (average Facebook CPA of $15-$35 for impulse products). The result is your true per-unit margin, often 10-20% after all costs.
With a $10 product margin and $25 average CPA on Facebook, you need a 2.5x ROAS just to break even. Most beginners achieve 1.2-1.8x ROAS, losing money per sale. This calculator shows your break-even ROAS before you spend a dollar on ads, preventing the most common dropshipping failure.
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