Business calculators
ROI Calculator
Compare an investment's net profit with the amount originally invested. Your inputs stay in this browser.
Live calculator
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What this calculator measures
ROI answers whether a defined outlay produced enough leftover value to justify itself: net profit divided by what you put in. Use it after a campaign, a tool subscription, a short consulting engagement, or a piece of equipment — any case where you can name the money spent and the money that came back.
The metric is misleading when the time windows differ. A 50% ROI over 11 months and a 50% ROI over four years are not interchangeable, and this calculator does not annualize. It is also misleading when return value is revenue instead of profit. $15,000 of sales against a $10,000 ad buy is not a 50% ROI if product and fees consumed $12,000; the honest return value is closer to $3,000 of contribution, which is a negative ROI on that $10,000.
The common manual mistake is to put revenue in the numerator's return slot and only media cost in the denominator. That is closer to ROAS than to ROI. ROI needs net profit — return minus the investment — over the investment. Mixing the two is how a 4x ad dashboard becomes a 50% ROI claim that an accountant cannot find.
Jules spends $4,500 on a weekend booth: booth fee, travel, samples, and a contractor. Attributed sales are $11,200. Product and payment costs on those sales are $5,040, so leftover value is $11,200 − $5,040 = $6,160. ROI is ($6,160 − $4,500) ÷ $4,500 = 36.9%. If Jules had used $11,200 as the return value, ROI would have printed 148.9% and she would have booked the same booth next quarter without noticing the samples were underpriced.
Formula
Inputs and variables
- Return value
- Enter the money amount used by this formula.
- Investment cost
- Enter the money amount used by this formula.
How to use the calculator
- Choose a display currency when money fields are present.
- Enter values that cover the same period, scope, and currency.
- Review the result, formula, and worked example before using the estimate in a decision.
- Change one assumption at a time to understand what drives the result.
Worked example
- 1Jules spends $4,500 on a booth. After product cost, leftover value on booth sales is $6,160.
- 2Net profit is $6,160 - $4,500 = $1,660.
- 3ROI is $1,660 / $4,500 x 100 = 36.9%. Using $11,200 of raw sales as the return would overstate the result.
How to interpret the result
A positive ROI means the scoped return exceeded the scoped cost. It is not a risk measure and it is not a forecast. Compare two ROIs only when the cost lists and the time spans are similar. State the months involved next to the percentage when the wait matters.
Common mistakes and limits
- Using revenue as return value when product, fees, or refunds were material.
- Comparing a one-month ROI with a multi-year ROI as if the percentages were the same unit.
- Leaving contractor, shipping, or tool costs out of the investment.
- Treating ROI and ROAS as interchangeable names for one dashboard tile.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good ROI for a small marketing campaign?
There is no universal percentage. A useful bar is whether net profit after product, refunds, and fees cleared the campaign cost in a time window you can fund. A 20% ROI in 30 days and a 20% ROI in 18 months are different decisions even though the number matches.
Is ROI the same as ROAS?
No. ROAS divides attributed ad revenue by ad spend and does not subtract product or overhead. ROI uses net profit over investment cost. A campaign can show 4x ROAS and a negative ROI once cost of goods and refunds are included.
Should I annualize ROI when comparing two investments?
This calculator does not annualize. If one project ran 3 months and the other ran 3 years, do not rank them by the raw percentage. Use a time-aware method (or at least divide by years as a rough check) before you call the shorter project worse.
Can ROI be high if I still lost cash this month?
Yes. ROI can include value that has not been collected yet, or it can cover a project whose profit lands after a large inventory buy. If the decision is payroll this Friday, use collected cash and the same week's costs, not a project ROI from last quarter.
What counts as investment cost for a freelance tool or course?
Include the purchase price and any required add-ons you would not have bought otherwise — extra seats, migration time you paid a contractor for, or a mandatory conference. Do not include your entire year's software stack unless the decision really was that stack. Scope the denominator to the decision.