What is a Good ROAS by Industry?

What counts as a good ROAS varies by industry and margin. Ecommerce: 4–8×. Finance: 7–12×. SaaS: 3–6×. Find your vertica...

A 'good' ROAS is meaningless without knowing your margin. A 4× ROAS is excellent for a 30% margin business and catastrophic for a 10% margin business. These benchmarks give you the industry context — but the break-even ROAS formula is what actually tells you if you're profitable.

Break-Even ROAS Formula

Break-even ROAS = 1 ÷ Gross Margin. At 40% margin, break-even ROAS = 2.5×. At 25% margin, break-even = 4×. At 60% margin, break-even = 1.67×. Your target ROAS should be 1.5–2× your break-even to generate meaningful profit after overhead and non-ad costs.

Ecommerce ROAS Benchmarks

Average ecommerce ROAS: 4.3×. Google Shopping typically delivers 5–9×. Meta retargeting: 3–6×. A 4× ROAS is the commonly cited minimum for ecommerce at ~25% margin, but DTC brands with higher margins can be profitable at 2.5–3×. Q4 should be targeting 6–8× to offset Q1–Q3 lean periods.

SaaS ROAS Benchmarks

Average SaaS ROAS: 3.8× (first-year revenue basis). On LTV basis, ROAS is typically 8–20× for products with strong retention. SaaS advertisers should calculate ROAS on 12-month predicted LTV, not MRR, to avoid under-investing in profitable acquisition channels.

Finance ROAS Benchmarks

Average finance ROAS: 7.2×. Insurance and mortgage see the highest ROAS of any vertical due to high policy/loan values. Finance advertisers should separate ROAS by product line — term life vs. annuities have fundamentally different conversion values and ROAS expectations.

Healthcare ROAS Benchmarks

Average healthcare ROAS: 4.9×. Elective procedures and premium services achieve higher ROAS than commoditized health services. Patient LTV is the key variable — a patient acquired for dental cleaning who becomes a recurring patient has 5–10× the LTV of the initial conversion value.

Legal ROAS Benchmarks

Average legal ROAS: 5.8×. Personal injury and mass tort achieve the highest ROAS (10–20×) due to contingency fee structures. Criminal defense and family law have lower but still strong ROAS (4–7×) with more consistent case volume.

Travel ROAS Benchmarks

Average travel ROAS: 5.4×. OTAs and booking platforms achieve the highest ROAS due to volume and repeat booking behavior. Independent hotels and tour operators typically see 3–5× ROAS. Q3 summer season should target 7–10× to build margin for Q4 trough.

Retail ROAS Benchmarks

Average retail ROAS: 4.1×. Brick-and-mortar retailers should include in-store revenue influenced by digital ads in ROAS calculation — pure digital attribution typically understates true ROAS by 20–40%. Q4 target: 6–8×. Q1–Q3 target: 3–5×.