CPC Calculator
What you can afford to pay per click.
Enter your numbers
CPC is not what platforms auction you at, it is what you can afford. Work it back from AOV, margin, conversion rate and the ROAS you need to hit.
Your CPC is above the break even of ₹7.88. At this conversion rate, every click loses money before the ad even runs.
What Is CPC And Why Your Affordable CPC Is Not The Auction CPC
CPC stands for Cost Per Click, the price you pay every time someone clicks your ad. Platforms decide the auction CPC. You decide the affordable CPC, and the two are almost never the same number.
Your affordable CPC is a downstream number. It falls out of AOV, margin, landing page conversion rate and the ROAS you want to hit. If your funnel converts at 1.5% and each order gives you ₹525 of contribution, you can afford roughly ₹7.87 per click. Anything higher and you are subsidising Meta with your own margin.
The safe target CPC is roughly 60% of break even. The aggressive ceiling sits close to 85% of break even, only defensible when repeat rate and retention are proven.
Six Inputs, Three CPC Ceilings You Can Bid Against
AOV
Average order value pulled from Shopify or your admin. Blended AOV is fine, but if bundles skew the number, use the AOV of the campaign you are actually running.
Gross Margin %
Selling price minus COGS as a percent of price. A ₹1500 product with ₹825 landed cost gives you 45% margin, the number that decides how much room you have to bid.
Other Costs Per Order
Shipping, COD handling, gateway, packaging, returns. Small line items that quietly erode contribution and shrink your affordable CPC.
Landing Page Conversion Rate
Percent of clicks that turn into paid orders. Do not use platform reported CVR, use Shopify or GA4 checkout completed divided by ad clicks.
Target ROAS
The ROAS your P&L needs, not the ROAS you wish for. A 2.5x target means every ₹1 of ad spend must produce ₹2.50 of revenue at minimum.
Your Current CPC
What Meta or Google is charging you today. Compare it against break even and target to see if you can push budgets or need to fix the funnel first.
Three CPC Thresholds Every Media Buyer Should Know By Heart
A single CPC number tells you nothing on its own. The operators who scale profitably always know their floor, their target and their stretch. Here is how we frame it inside Trakkify when we run paid at scale.
| Threshold | Definition | Use It For |
|---|---|---|
| Break Even CPC | Contribution per order × conversion rate | Absolute ceiling, never cross it on prospecting |
| Target CPC | About 60% of break even, healthy cushion | Daily bid decisions and creative rotation |
| Aggressive CPC | Up to 85% of break even, only with proven retention | Launch campaigns, market share pushes, category tests |
Why Most Brands Chase The Wrong CPC Number
Optimising CPC In Isolation
A cheap CPC on a bad landing page is worse than a costlier CPC that converts. CPC only matters when paired with the conversion rate it produced.
Using Platform Conversion Rate
Meta and Google inflate conversion rate with view through windows. Always compute CVR from Shopify orders divided by real ad clicks, not the platform dashboard.
Ignoring Placement Differences
Reels, feed, search and shopping all price clicks differently. A blended CPC hides which placement actually deserves budget.
Fixed CPC Bidding Too Early
Manual CPC bidding starves the algorithm of data. Set a max CPC ceiling, but let the platform find scale within it, not below it.
CPC Higher Than It Should Be?
Rising CPC is almost always a creative and audience problem, not a bidding problem. Get a free audit from our team, we will show you where the leak is.