ROI Calculator
What the money came back as — and what that rate looks like across a year.
ROI is the simplest honest scorecard in business: (return − cost) ÷ cost. Spend $12,000 on a campaign, book $30,000 of business from it, and your ROI is 150% — you kept $18,000 after paying for the effort. This ROI calculator does that arithmetic and then adds the part most spreadsheets skip: time. A 150% return over six months and a 150% return over three years are completely different businesses, so enter the period in months and you also get the monthly rate and the annualized one. It runs entirely in your browser, and nothing you type is stored.
How to run an ROI number you can actually defend
- Use net return, not gross revenue: subtract refunds, discounts and the cost of goods before you divide, or you are measuring popularity rather than profit.
- Count the whole cost — agency fees, tool subscriptions, and the hours your own team spent. Leaving out internal labour is the most common way an ROI number flatters the decision that produced it.
- ROI and ROAS answer different questions. ROAS is revenue ÷ ad spend; ROI is profit ÷ total cost. A campaign at 4x ROAS can still be a negative ROI once production, fulfilment and returns land.
- Always attach a time period. Thirty percent is excellent over three months and mediocre over four years — the annualized figure is what makes two very different investments comparable at all.
- Beware ROI on tiny bases: $200 of spend returning $600 is 200% ROI and pays nobody's salary. Rank projects by absolute profit first, then use ROI to break ties between them.
- Decide the measurement window before you spend, not after results land. Choosing whichever window makes the number look best is how teams talk themselves into repeating a loss.
Example output
Cost / return / period: Total cost $12,000 · return generated $30,000 · period 6 months
ROI: 150.0% Net profit: $18,000 ($30,000 return − $12,000 cost) Every $1 invested came back as $2.50 — $1.50 of it profit. Over 6 months: 25.0% per month (simple average). Annualized: 525.0% — the yearly rate this return implies if you could repeat it.
Frequently asked questions
- How do you calculate ROI?
- ROI = (return − cost) ÷ cost, shown as a percentage. A $12,000 campaign returning $30,000 gives (30,000 − 12,000) ÷ 12,000 = 150%. The discipline is all in the inputs: net return after refunds and cost of goods, and every dollar of cost including labour, tools and agency fees.
- What's a good ROI for marketing spend?
- There is no universal benchmark, because it depends on your margin and how long your sales cycle runs. The only threshold that always holds is that the return has to beat what the same money would earn in its next-best use — another channel, more inventory, or a hire. Compare against that, not against a number from a blog post.
- What's the difference between ROI and annualized ROI?
- Plain ROI ignores time entirely — it treats 40% earned in two months and 40% earned in two years as identical. Annualized ROI compounds the period return across twelve months, (1 + ROI)^(12 ÷ months) − 1, so investments of different lengths can finally be judged on the same axis.
- Why is this free — what's the catch?
- No catch and no signup. This tool is funded by EaseClaw, an AI agent that finds people publicly asking for what you sell and drafts your replies. If the free tool is useful, some people try the free trial. That's the whole business model.