Is this ROI calculator free, and is anything uploaded?

Yes, it is completely free with no limits, and it runs entirely in your browser. The calculation happens on your own machine and nothing you enter, no figures, no costs, no revenue, is sent to a server. Signing in with a free account is required only to copy the summary, so your work can follow you across our other tools. Your financial figures stay on your device.

How is ROI calculated?

ROI is the net profit as a percentage of the amount invested. The tool subtracts what you invested from what came back to get the net profit, divides that by the investment, and multiplies by a hundred. So investing ten thousand and getting back twenty-five thousand is a net profit of fifteen thousand and an ROI of a hundred and fifty percent, which is two and a half times your money. It shows all three figures so none is mistaken for another.

What does annualised ROI mean?

Annualised ROI expresses a return as the equivalent steady yearly rate it would take to produce that total over the investment's actual length, accounting for compounding. It exists so you can compare investments of different durations fairly. A fifty percent return over two years annualises to roughly twenty-two percent a year, which you can then compare directly with a one-year investment. Enter a period in months and the tool calculates it.

What is the difference between ROI and ROAS?

ROAS, return on ad spend, is revenue divided by ad spend, a quick gauge of whether a campaign is working. ROI is profit as a percentage of total cost, which accounts for the cost of goods and every other expense, not just the ads. A campaign can have a good ROAS and a negative ROI if margins are thin. The tool's marketing mode shows both, so you see whether revenue is actually turning into profit.

Can a good-looking campaign still be losing money?

Yes, and this is exactly why the distinction matters. A ROAS of three or four looks healthy, but if the product you sold cost most of that revenue to make and deliver, the campaign can still lose money once every cost is counted. Enter your cost of goods and other costs in marketing mode, and the ROI figure will reveal the real result behind an attractive ROAS.

What counts as a good ROI?

It depends entirely on the alternative and the risk. A return is good only if it beats what you could have earned elsewhere for similar risk over the same period, which is why the annualised figure matters. A twelve percent yearly return is excellent for a low-risk investment and poor for a high-risk venture. The tool gives you the honest numbers, including the annualised rate, so you can judge them against your own alternatives.

Free Tool

Free ROI Calculator, know what your money actually returned

Work out the return on any investment or marketing spend: the profit, the percentage return, how many times your money came back, and an equivalent yearly rate so investments of different lengths compare fairly. Switch to marketing mode for ROAS. Every result comes with a plain-language verdict, so the number is never left to be misread. Nothing is uploaded.

Currency

Amount invested

USD

Amount returned

USD

Time period (months, optional)

Add a period to see the return expressed as an equivalent yearly rate, so you can compare it fairly with investments of other lengths.

ROI

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Net profit

—

Return multiple

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Total in

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Return on investment is the number every business decision is supposed to turn on, and it is one of the most commonly miscalculated and misquoted figures in business. Part of the trouble is that the phrase gets used loosely: people quote the raw profit as if it were the return, confuse the money made with the rate of return, and compare a percentage from a six-month project against one from a two-year project as though they measured the same thing. A gain of ten thousand sounds impressive until you learn it took a hundred thousand and three years to make, at which point it is a mediocre return. Marketing adds its own confusion with ROAS, return on ad spend, which looks like ROI but is measured against revenue rather than profit and against ad spend rather than total cost, so a campaign with a healthy-looking ROAS can still be losing money once the product costs are counted. The result is decisions made on numbers that do not mean what the person quoting them thinks they mean. This tool is built to make the real return unambiguous. It shows the profit, the percentage and the multiple side by side so they cannot be conflated, it annualises the return when you give it a time period so different durations can be compared honestly, and it writes out in plain words what the result actually means, so no one walks away with the wrong conclusion.

What ROI is, and what it is not

Return on investment is the profit an investment made expressed as a percentage of what was put in. The formula is simple: take what came back, subtract what you invested to get the net profit, then divide that profit by the investment and multiply by a hundred. Invest a thousand and get back fifteen hundred, and your net profit is five hundred, your ROI is fifty percent, and your money came back one and a half times. The distinction that trips people up is between the profit and the rate. The profit is an amount of money; the ROI is a rate that lets you compare investments of different sizes. A five hundred profit tells you nothing about whether an investment was good until you know it came from a thousand, not a million. Reporting the percentage alongside the absolute profit and the multiple, as this tool does, keeps the three separate so you always know both how much you made and how efficiently you made it, which are different questions with different answers.

Why time changes everything

A percentage return with no time attached is only half a number, and comparing two of them without accounting for how long each took is how good investments get mistaken for bad ones and vice versa. A fifty percent return is excellent if it happened in a year and unremarkable if it took a decade, because over ten years a modest savings account might have beaten it. To compare fairly you have to put returns on the same footing, which means annualising them: expressing each as the equivalent steady yearly rate it would need to produce that total over its actual length. This is not the same as dividing the total return by the number of years, because returns compound; a proper annualised figure accounts for that compounding. When you give this tool a time period, it does that calculation for you and shows the annualised rate next to the total return, so a six-month win and a three-year win can be laid side by side and judged for what they really are. Without that step, longer investments always look artificially impressive, which is exactly the illusion that leads to poor decisions.

ROAS and marketing ROI are not the same

In marketing the headline number is usually ROAS, return on ad spend, which is simply the revenue a campaign produced divided by what you spent on ads. A ROAS of four means four units of revenue for every one spent, and it is a useful, fast gauge of whether an ad channel is working. But it is not profit, and treating it as if it were is a classic and expensive mistake. ROAS measures revenue against ad spend alone; it ignores the cost of the product you sold, the payment fees, the shipping, the returns and every other cost of actually delivering that revenue. A campaign with a ROAS of four can still lose money if your margins are thin, because after the cost of goods there may be nothing left. True marketing ROI subtracts all of those costs to measure actual profit against total cost, which is the number that tells you whether the campaign made you richer. This tool shows both: the ROAS marketers expect, and the real ROI once you enter your other costs, so you can see the difference between a campaign that looks profitable and one that is.

How to use it

1
Choose your mode
Pick Investment ROI for any general investment, purchase or project, or Marketing ROI when you are measuring an advertising campaign and want ROAS alongside the return. Set the currency so every figure is formatted correctly.
2
Enter the money in and out
For an investment, enter what you put in and what came back. For marketing, enter your ad spend, the revenue it generated, and any other costs such as cost of goods so the ROI reflects real profit rather than just revenue.
3
Add a time period to compare fairly
In investment mode, add the holding period in months and the tool shows the return as an equivalent yearly rate. This is what lets you compare a short investment against a long one honestly, rather than being fooled by the longer one's larger total.
4
Read the verdict, then copy it
The tool shows the profit, the percentage return and the multiple, and writes out in plain language what the result means so it cannot be misread. Copy the summary to drop into a report or an email. Copying asks you to sign in with a free account; calculating is always free and nothing is uploaded.

Common mistakes

Quoting the profit as the return

Saying an investment returned ten thousand is meaningless without the amount invested, because ten thousand on twenty thousand is a strong return and ten thousand on a million is a poor one. Always pair the profit with the percentage and the multiple, which is what tells you how efficient the investment was, not just how large.

Comparing returns of different lengths

A forty percent total return over four years is worse than twenty percent in one year, but the raw percentages suggest the opposite. Annualise both before you compare them, which this tool does when you enter a period, so you are comparing equivalent yearly rates rather than totals over unequal timeframes.

Treating ROAS as profit

A campaign with a ROAS of four is bringing in four in revenue per one of ad spend, but that is revenue, not profit. Once the cost of goods, fees and other costs are subtracted, it can still be a loss. Enter your other costs and read the ROI, not just the ROAS, to know whether the campaign actually made money.

Ignoring the costs that are not the headline spend

The investment is rarely just the obvious number. A project's real cost can include your time, tools, fees and overheads, and leaving them out inflates the ROI into fiction. Count the full cost of the investment, not just the cheque you wrote, so the return you calculate is one you can actually rely on.

Questions

Is this ROI calculator free, and is anything uploaded?: Yes, it is completely free with no limits, and it runs entirely in your browser. The calculation happens on your own machine and nothing you enter, no figures, no costs, no revenue, is sent to a server. Signing in with a free account is required only to copy the summary, so your work can follow you across our other tools. Your financial figures stay on your device.
How is ROI calculated?: ROI is the net profit as a percentage of the amount invested. The tool subtracts what you invested from what came back to get the net profit, divides that by the investment, and multiplies by a hundred. So investing ten thousand and getting back twenty-five thousand is a net profit of fifteen thousand and an ROI of a hundred and fifty percent, which is two and a half times your money. It shows all three figures so none is mistaken for another.
What does annualised ROI mean?: Annualised ROI expresses a return as the equivalent steady yearly rate it would take to produce that total over the investment's actual length, accounting for compounding. It exists so you can compare investments of different durations fairly. A fifty percent return over two years annualises to roughly twenty-two percent a year, which you can then compare directly with a one-year investment. Enter a period in months and the tool calculates it.
What is the difference between ROI and ROAS?: ROAS, return on ad spend, is revenue divided by ad spend, a quick gauge of whether a campaign is working. ROI is profit as a percentage of total cost, which accounts for the cost of goods and every other expense, not just the ads. A campaign can have a good ROAS and a negative ROI if margins are thin. The tool's marketing mode shows both, so you see whether revenue is actually turning into profit.
Can a good-looking campaign still be losing money?: Yes, and this is exactly why the distinction matters. A ROAS of three or four looks healthy, but if the product you sold cost most of that revenue to make and deliver, the campaign can still lose money once every cost is counted. Enter your cost of goods and other costs in marketing mode, and the ROI figure will reveal the real result behind an attractive ROAS.
What counts as a good ROI?: It depends entirely on the alternative and the risk. A return is good only if it beats what you could have earned elsewhere for similar risk over the same period, which is why the annualised figure matters. A twelve percent yearly return is excellent for a low-risk investment and poor for a high-risk venture. The tool gives you the honest numbers, including the annualised rate, so you can judge them against your own alternatives.

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