Most Amazon brands cap their ad spend at the profit of a single order. If your customers buy again, that ceiling is too low, and it costs you growth. Enter your numbers to see both limits: your first-order breakeven ACoS and your lifetime breakeven ACoS.
A ceiling, not a target. The extra budget assumes you keep today’s efficiency. New spend usually lands at a higher ACoS than your current average, and new customers may reorder less than existing ones. Scale in steps and recheck the numbers every month.
This is the share of a first order you can spend on ads before that order loses money. It equals your contribution margin before ads: 100% minus COGS and inbound freight, the referral fee, FBA fulfilment and returns.
This is what you can spend to win a customer and still break even once their repeat orders come in. It equals your first-order breakeven ACoS multiplied by your LTV multiplier, where the LTV multiplier is 1 + repeat purchase rate × average repeat orders per repeat customer.
For example, a 37% contribution margin, a 26% repeat rate and 1.6 repeat orders per repeat customer give an LTV multiplier of 1.42× and a lifetime breakeven ACoS of 52.4%.
This is your monthly ad spend × (lifetime breakeven ACoS ÷ current ACoS − 1): how much more you could spend at today’s efficiency before customers stop paying back over their lifetime.
These are directional planning ranges for pressure-testing your inputs, not published benchmarks. Your own data always wins. If an input sits far outside these ranges, check it before trusting the result.
| Input | Typical low | Typical high | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| COGS + inbound freight (% of revenue) | 22% | 40% | Lower for supplements and cosmetics; higher for food, beverage and bulky goods. |
| Amazon referral fee | 8% | 15% | 15% in most categories. Grocery and parts of Health & Personal Care sit at 8% below a price threshold. Check your fee schedule in Seller Central; EU rates differ by marketplace and change every year. |
| FBA fulfilment (% of AOV) | 8% | 20% | Driven by weight and dimensions. Liquids and multipacks push toward the top. |
| Returns, refunds & damages | 1% | 5% | Low for sealed dry goods; higher for liquids, glass and anything heat-sensitive. |
| Contribution margin before ads | 25% | 45% | Below 25%, advertising alone will not fix the business. Pricing or costs will. |
| Repeat purchase rate (yearly) | 10% | 40% | Consumables cluster higher than the Amazon average. Under 10% on a consumable suggests the product or pack size is wrong. |
| Avg repeat orders per repeat customer | 1.3 | 3.5 | Rises with how fast the product is used up and with Subscribe & Save uptake. |
| LTV multiplier | 1.1× | 2.2× | Below 1.2×, the lifetime case is weak. Manage close to first-order breakeven. |
Breakeven ACoS is the ACoS at which ad-driven sales make zero profit. Below it, your ads make money; above it, they lose money. For a single order, it equals your contribution margin before advertising.
Because repeat orders from the same customer bring in profit without new ad spend. For consumables and CPG products that customers reorder, the first order can run at a loss and still pay back over the customer lifetime.
There is no single number. Keep your ACoS below your lifetime breakeven ACoS, and stay close to first-order breakeven if your LTV multiplier is below 1.2.
Yes. If customers rarely buy again, your LTV multiplier will be close to 1, and both breakeven numbers will be almost the same. In that case, manage to your first-order breakeven ACoS.
Want us to run these numbers on your account and show you where extra budget should go? Get a free Amazon PPC audit, or see how we run Amazon PPC for CPG brands.