Amazon ACOS Calculator

What is ACOS? ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sales) is Amazon's metric for paid-search efficiency — the percentage of ad-attributed revenue spent on the ads themselves. An ACOS of 28% means you spent $0.28 in advertising for every $1 of PPC revenue. It is Amazon's version of CPA. Lower is better, but the target ACOS depends entirely on your profit margin.

TACOS (Total Advertising Cost of Sales) is the more holistic metric — PPC spend divided by total revenue including organic sales. TACOS captures the halo effect of PPC advertising on organic rankings. A brand might have a 28% ACOS but only 11% TACOS because PPC drives organic visibility that generates additional unpaid sales.

Breakeven ACOS equals your profit margin before ads. If your margin after Amazon fees and COGS is 25%, your breakeven ACOS is 25%. Any ACOS below that is profitable. Any ACOS above it means you are losing money on every PPC sale. This is the most important number for setting Amazon PPC bid strategies.

The strategic insight is that ACOS and TACOS tell different stories. A brand running aggressive PPC at 35% ACOS (above breakeven) might still be profitable at the total level if TACOS is 12% because the PPC investment is driving organic ranking improvements. This is a deliberate growth strategy — accept unprofitable PPC in the short term to build organic momentum. Track both metrics to understand whether your PPC investment is paying off at the total business level even when individual campaign ACOS looks high.