Amazon ACoS: what it measures, what a good value is and how to lower it
An ACoS of 19.9%, but only €19.59 profit after advertising for the week: that’s what ORVENTA keeps from its stainless steel water bottle (ASIN B0EXAMPLE3). The bottle has been running with Sponsored Products on amazon.de for weeks. The weekly report splits the team: too high, or fine after all? The answer takes more than the ad report: your margin, Amazon’s attribution windows and the campaign goal.
Using the bottle, we work out which sales count, where break-even lies for sellers and vendors, how to derive your target ACoS and how to lower ACoS. We also convert to ROAS, the metric Amazon now prefers: it expresses the same ratio, just the other way round.
All ORVENTA figures are made-up example values, not current Amazon fees.
What is Amazon ACoS?
ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales) shows how much of your attributed ad sales goes into advertising. Amazon writes it as “ACOS”.
ACoS = ad spend ÷ attributed sales × 100
In one week, ORVENTA paid €179.85 for clicks and got €904.68 in attributed sales: €179.85 ÷ €904.68 ≈ 19.9%. So just under 20 cents of every euro of ad sales went into advertising.
Organic sales don’t count toward ACoS, only sales that Amazon attributes to an ad. Ad spend relative to total sales is measured by TACoS (more on that below). You can calculate your own values with our ROAS and ACoS calculator.
The cost with Sponsored Products: clicks × cost per click (CPC). Sponsored Brands and display ads (formerly Sponsored Display) can also bill per 1,000 viewable impressions (vCPM). Then you pay for visibility, not for clicks.
Which sales count: net, without discounts, by click date
Amazon deducts VAT from attributed sales. Cart discounts are not included. Amazon also takes out cancellations within 72 hours and failed payments. That can take up to 7 days.
The ACoS in the advertising console is already based on net sales. You don’t need to take anything out. Compare it with your net margin, not with a margin on the gross price.
Amazon books a sale on the day of the ad interaction, not on the day of the order. Conversions can lag by up to 12 hours, Sponsored Products sales by up to 48 hours, Sponsored Brands sales by up to 12 hours. Amazon shows no ROAS for “Today”. The last 7 days (sellers, Sponsored Products) or 14 days (vendors, Sponsored Brands, display ads) therefore look worse for the time being.
In the console, the metrics are now called “Purchases” (formerly “Orders”), “Sales”, “Cost” (formerly “Spend”) and “Purchase rate” (formerly conversion rate). In the campaign table, the columns are “Purchases”, “Sales”, “Total cost” and “ROAS”; ACOS is called “Advertising cost of sales” there (as of October 2026). If your console runs in another language, the labels can differ.
ACoS from cost per click and conversion rate
You can derive ACoS without an ad report too:
ACoS = CPC ÷ (conversion rate × net price)
A click costs ORVENTA €0.55 on average. 11% of clicks lead to a purchase of the bottle at a net price of €25.13. So: 0.55 ÷ (0.11 × 25.13) ≈ 19.9%. That’s the same value as in the report.
| Stage | ORVENTA in the week | What lies in between |
|---|---|---|
| Impressions | 32,700 | |
| Clicks | 327 | CTR 1.0% |
| Purchases | 36 | Purchase rate 11% |
| Cost | €179.85 | 327 × €0.55 |
| Attributed sales | €904.68 | 36 × €25.13 |
Cheaper clicks, more purchases per click or a higher net price lower ACoS. Click-through rate (CTR) doesn’t appear in the formula. More clicks without additional purchases push ACoS up.
ACoS and ROAS: the same calculation from two sides
ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) turns the fraction upside down:
ROAS = attributed sales ÷ ad spend
ROAS is a factor, not a percentage. ORVENTA gets €904.68 ÷ €179.85 ≈ 5.0: every euro of advertising brought in about 5 euros in sales.
You can convert in both directions: ROAS = 1 ÷ ACoS, with ACoS as a decimal.
| ACoS | ROAS | Of €1 in sales, this goes into advertising |
|---|---|---|
| 10% | 10 | €0.10 |
| 14% | 7.1 | €0.14 |
| 20% | 5 | €0.20 |
| 25% | 4 | €0.25 |
| 33% | 3 | €0.33 |
| 50% | 2 | €0.50 |
Amazon is moving its reporting to ROAS. The Amazon Ads help glossary of performance metrics lists ROAS, but no longer ACOS. In Sponsored Products reports, though, Amazon still calculates ACoS. How to show the column again is covered in the FAQ at the end.
Rule-based bidding for Sponsored Products needs a ROAS target, not an ACoS target. For an ACoS of 14%, ORVENTA enters a ROAS target of about 7.1. According to Amazon’s API documentation, the campaign needs to have run for at least 10 days, have 10 conversions in the last 30 days and, in Germany, a daily budget of €10. Amazon can change these criteria. The Sponsored Products article explains the bidding strategies.
Both say the same thing. Agree on one metric in your team so nobody compares 20% with 5. If you work with Amazon’s rule-based bidding or benchmarks, ROAS is the more practical choice.
ACoS and TACoS: advertising relative to total sales
ORVENTA’s ACoS only covers ad sales. How heavily ad spend weighs on total sales is shown by TACoS (Total Advertising Cost of Sales):
TACoS = ad spend ÷ total sales × 100
Total sales include organic sales. Amazon uses TACoS, an industry metric, in its guides for sellers, but doesn’t show it in the advertising console. Calculate it yourself: with your ad spend and total sales from Seller Central or Vendor Central.
In the week, ORVENTA sold €3,000 net worth of the bottle across all channels: €179.85 ÷ €3,000 ≈ 6.0%. Because ad sales are net, total sales must be net too.
Look at ACoS and TACoS together over time. The following reading is our interpretation, not a rule from Amazon:
| ACoS | TACoS | Possible reading |
|---|---|---|
| stays the same | falls | Organic sales grow faster than ad sales |
| falls | stays the same or rises | Advertising gets more efficient, but total sales depend more on it |
| rises | rises | Advertising buys sales that would have come anyway, or competition gets more expensive |
Amazon itself only says that a lower TACoS can indicate that advertising also drives organic sales.
For vendors, total sales are Amazon’s sales of your products, not the sum of your invoices to Amazon (more on that under vendor break-even).
Amazon also measures longer-term impact, but not for Sponsored Products. “New-to-brand” counts purchases by customers who haven’t bought from the brand in the last 12 months, for Sponsored Brands, display ads, video and audio. “Long-term sales” and “Long-term ROAS” project over 12 months, in Germany too. They are only in downloadable reports and require 12 months of campaign data, 30 orders and 4,500 detail page views per month.
Why the same ACoS doesn’t mean the same thing: seller, vendor, ad type
Which sales get attributed to an ad depends on the ad type and the account:
| Campaign and account | Window | What counts |
|---|---|---|
| Sponsored Products, sellers | 7 days after the click | advertised product and other products from the same seller; clicks only |
| Sponsored Products, vendors and authors | 14 days after the click | advertised product and other products of the same brand that Amazon sells (brand halo); clicks only |
| Sponsored Brands and display ads | 14 days | products on the landing page plus brand halo, including sales by other sellers and used items; clicks, and with vCPM also views |
What follows from this:
- Sellers and vendors aren’t comparable. A vendor ACoS has twice the window and counts other products of the brand too. At the same cost, it can therefore come out lower.
- Sponsored Brands and display ads can include other sellers’ sales. If another seller sells your brand, their sale can end up in your ACoS.
- A sale counts once at most. Amazon attributes it to exactly one interaction, in this order: click on the advertised product, click on a product of the brand (halo), view of the advertised product, view of a product of the brand.
- A new view attribution applies since January 1, 2026. For Sponsored Brands and display ads with vCPM (and for Amazon DSP with ads in the Amazon store), a shorter window that relies more on purchase signals applies, in Germany too. Amazon doesn’t say how long it is. Click attribution stays unchanged. So compare vCPM campaigns only before or after January 1, 2026, not across that date.
In Sponsored Products reports you still find sales columns for 1, 7, 14 and 30 days after the click. For ACoS, though, the window from the table counts: 7 days for sellers, 14 days for vendors.
What is a good ACoS?
“10 to 30% is normal” doesn’t help ORVENTA much: its break-even is at 22%. There is no generally good ACoS, Amazon says so too. Your margin determines break-even, your campaign goal the target ACoS. According to Amazon, new campaigns usually have a higher ACoS. A good value is one that lies below your break-even and fits the campaign goal.
Calculate break-even ACoS from your margin
At break-even, advertising eats up the product’s profit. Break-even ACoS equals your margin before ad costs:
Margin before ad costs = (net price − all costs per unit) ÷ net price
VAT is not a cost item here: you calculate from the net price, as Amazon does for ad sales.
| Item | ORVENTA as a seller |
|---|---|
| Selling price gross / net (19% VAT) | €29.90 / €25.13 |
| Manufacturing or purchasing cost, net | €8.50 |
| Amazon fees (referral fee and FBA), example value | €9.69 |
| Other (shipping to the warehouse, packaging) | €1.40 |
| Cost per unit | €19.59 |
| Profit before advertising | €5.54 |
| Margin before ad costs = break-even ACoS | 5.54 ÷ 25.13 ≈ 22% |
| Break-even ROAS | 1 ÷ 0.22 ≈ 4.5 |
19.9% is below ORVENTA’s break-even. 36 purchases × €5.54 make €199.44 profit before advertising. After €179.85 in ad spend, €19.59 remains. That’s just over 2% of ad sales; the goal is 8%.
To capture all your costs per unit, follow the guide Calculate FBA costs per unit.
Your margin also gives you the highest cost per click ORVENTA can afford: Break-even CPC = margin × conversion rate × net price, so 0.22 × 0.11 × €25.13 ≈ €0.61. ORVENTA pays €0.55 on average.
From profit to target ACoS
ORVENTA stainless steel bottle 1 l · B0EXAMPLE3
VAT
Net price
€25.13
€29.90 ÷ 1.19 · Amazon removes VAT from attributed sales.
Profit per unit before ads
€5.54
€25.13 − €19.59
Margin before ads = break-even ACoS
22.0%
€5.54 ÷ €25.13 · Break-even ROAS 4.5
Target ACoS
14.0%
22.0% − 8% target profit
ROAS target for rule-based bidding
7.1
1 ÷ 14.0%
Example values from ORVENTA. Try your own numbers.
Break-even ACoS for vendors: calculate on Amazon’s selling price
As a vendor, you invoice Amazon. But the ad report shows Amazon’s sales of your products, without VAT. So you have to relate your break-even ACoS to Amazon’s net selling price too, not to the purchase price that Amazon pays.
Break-even ACoS (vendor) = profit per unit ÷ Amazon’s net selling price
Amazon doesn’t put it in these words, but it follows directly from how Amazon counts sales for vendors. Suppose ORVENTA sells the same bottle to Amazon as a vendor:
| Item | ORVENTA as a vendor |
|---|---|
| Purchase price Amazon pays (net) | €13.50 |
| Own costs (manufacturing and logistics) | €9.50 |
| Profit per unit | €4.00 |
| Amazon’s selling price gross / net | €29.90 / €25.13 |
| Wrong calculation: 4.00 ÷ 13.50 | ≈ 29.6% |
| Correct break-even ACoS: 4.00 ÷ 25.13 | ≈ 15.9% |
| Break-even ROAS: 1 ÷ 0.159 | ≈ 6.3 |
With 29.6% as the limit, the campaign looks profitable, while ORVENTA loses money at every ACoS between 15.9% and 29.6%. In the calculator above, you see both values side by side when you switch to “Vendor”.
If Amazon changes its selling price, your break-even ACoS changes too.
Set your target ACoS by goal
Subtract the profit you want from break-even:
Target ACoS = break-even ACoS − desired profit in % of sales
As a seller, ORVENTA wants to earn 8% of sales: 22% − 8% = 14%. For rule-based bidding, that’s a ROAS target of about 7.1. As a vendor, it would be 15.9% − 8% ≈ 7.9%, so a ROAS target of about 12.6.
How far your target ACoS lies below break-even depends on the campaign goal:
| Goal | Target ACoS relative to margin |
|---|---|
| Product launch, visibility | at break-even or temporarily above, with an end date and a budget limit |
| Growth | close to break-even |
| Profit on established products | well below break-even |
A common view that Amazon doesn’t confirm: at product launch, an ACoS above your margin can be a deliberate investment, because sales through advertising are supposed to support organic ranking as well. Amazon only says that new campaigns usually have a higher ACoS.
Compare with other brands: benchmarks in campaign manager
Other brands give you a point of comparison. They don’t give you your break-even.
Amazon shows benchmark cards in campaign manager, since May 18, 2026 in Germany too. They compare your value with the median of a group of at least 5 similar brands; the 25th and 75th percentiles are available through the API and in downloadable reports. Brand owners in Brand Registry can use them.
The metrics include CPC, CPM, CTR and new-to-brand values, but neither ROAS nor ACOS (as of October 2026, checked for Sponsored Brands). The “Benchmarks” card sits on the Campaigns page above the campaign table; “View details” opens the details. Benchmarks there cover Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display only, not Sponsored Products.
Amazon shuts down the old reports page (“Sponsored ads reports”) with the “Benchmark report”: from December 17, 2026 you can no longer create reports there, and on December 31, 2026 Amazon removes the page; the new reporting interface (unified reporting) doesn’t have this report yet. Amazon reserves the right to change the dates.
Lower ACoS: the levers in the formula
ACoS = CPC ÷ (conversion rate × net price) has three levers: cost per click, conversion rate and price. The fourth: cut spend that brings no sales. Optimizing Amazon PPC campaigns explains the steps.
Cost per click. Lower the bid on the keyword or product target. Your CPC is never higher than your max bid including adjustments. There is no fixed rule like “second-highest bid plus one cent”; relevance counts in the auction too. The bidding strategy “Dynamic bids, down only” and placement adjustments affect CPC as well. Lower bids in steps and watch impressions.
Conversion rate. ORVENTA pays for the click. Now the product page has to sell the bottle. Good images, a clear title, a helpful description, A+ Content and reviews raise the conversion rate. If ORVENTA’s conversion rate rises from 11% to 13%, ACoS at the same CPC falls to 0.55 ÷ (0.13 × 25.13) ≈ 16.8%.
Price. A higher net price lowers ACoS at the same CPC and conversion rate. Usually, though, the price changes the conversion rate too. Calculate both together.
Search terms without sales. Click paid, no purchase: the search term report shows you the search queries behind it. Exclude them as negative keywords once there are enough clicks to judge. The keyword as a whole can keep running. The Sponsored Products article describes how.
With bulksheets, you change bids and keywords of many campaigns in one spreadsheet file.
When a lower ACoS is worse
A lower ACoS can cost profit if sales drop with it. At a margin of 22%, profit after advertising is: sales × (margin − ACoS).
| Option | Sales and ACoS | Profit after advertising |
|---|---|---|
| A | €1,000 at 12% | 1,000 × (0.22 − 0.12) = €100 |
| B | €2,500 at 17% | 2,500 × (0.22 − 0.17) = €125 |
Option B has the higher ACoS and earns €25 more. The goal is absolute profit after advertising, not the lowest percentage.
Check ACoS and TACoS per product with AMALYTIX Advertising
One bottle, one marketplace: the advertising console is enough for that. With 200 ASINs in five marketplaces, you collect one report per marketplace, get total sales from another and check each product’s own break-even threshold.
In AMALYTIX Advertising, you see the campaigns of all connected marketplaces in one table. Filter campaigns above your ACoS limit and save the filter for the next check. The overview compares sales, cost, ACoS and ROAS with the previous period. Flop lists show everything with at least 20 clicks and a ROAS below 2.
In the product list, the column “TACoS 28d %” shows for each product the ad spend of the last 28 days relative to the sales of the last 28 days, for sellers and vendors. So you see which products’ sales depend most heavily on advertising.
- SP | Coffee grinders | AutoSP$50$1,130$2,41047%
- SP | Spice grinders | BroadSP$30$610$1,29047%
- SP | Competitor ASINsSP$40$790$1,62049%
3 of 6 campaigns with ACoS above 30%
You set the limit yourself for each product group: for ORVENTA, for example, the break-even of 22% or the target of 14%. AMALYTIX doesn’t know your costs per product and therefore can’t calculate break-even for you. You grant AMALYTIX access to the Amazon Advertising API separately for this. Reports are loaded daily, not live.
Pull the campaigns of all marketplaces into one table and filter for campaigns above your break-even ACoS. Start your 14-day free trial
Conclusion
- ACoS is based on net sales. Compare it with your net margin.
- Your break-even ACoS is your margin before ad costs. Vendors calculate on Amazon’s net selling price.
- Derive your target ACoS from your goal and convert it into a ROAS target for rule-based bidding.
- Read ACoS together with TACoS and profit after advertising.
- Compare only like with like: seller with seller, ad type with ad type, vCPM before or after January 1, 2026.
Frequently asked questions about Amazon ACoS
What is a good ACoS on Amazon?
There is no general number, Amazon says so too. A good ACoS lies below your margin before ad costs. At a 22% margin, an ACoS of 19.9% is profitable, but only just.
What is the difference between ACoS, TACoS and ROAS?
ACoS divides ad spend by attributed ad sales; ROAS is the inverse, as a factor. TACoS divides ad spend by total sales including organic sales.
Does Amazon calculate ACoS with or without VAT?
Without. Amazon deducts VAT from attributed sales, and cart discounts are not included.
How do I convert ACoS to ROAS?
ROAS = 1 ÷ ACoS, with ACoS as a decimal. An ACoS of 25% equals a ROAS of 4, an ACoS of 20% a ROAS of 5.
Why is the ACoS of the last few days so high?
Amazon books sales on the day of the click and counts them for 7 days (sellers) or 14 days (vendors, Sponsored Brands, display ads). On top of that come delays of up to 48 hours. The last few days are therefore still incomplete.
Why can’t I find ACoS in the advertising console anymore?
Amazon is moving reporting to ROAS. According to a reply from Amazon in the US seller forums (early 2026), ACOS is still available. We confirmed this in a German account in October 2026: in the campaign table, choose “Columns” → “Customise columns” and tick “Advertising cost of sales”. In the performance chart and the placements table it is called “ACOS”.
Can I set a target ACoS on Amazon?
No. Rule-based bidding for Sponsored Products takes a ROAS target: a target ACoS of 14% equals about 7.1.
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