Free Tool
Affiliate ROI Calculator
Did that campaign actually make money? Enter the commission you earned and everything you spent — ads and content together — and this calculator gives you the ROI, the profit or loss, and the spend at which you break even.
Estimates and scenarios for planning purposes only — not financial advice. The results on this page are built from the numbers you enter. They are planning aids, not predictions, and not financial, tax or legal advice. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.
What this tool does
Return on investment is (commission earned minus spend) divided by spend, multiplied by 100. If you earned $800 in commission and spent $500, the ROI is (800 − 500) ÷ 500 × 100 = 60%. The profit is the same subtraction without the division: $300. The break-even spend is simply the commission itself: spend $800 and the campaign makes exactly nothing.
Two details decide whether the answer means anything. First, spend must include content costs — writing, design, tools, your own hours if you count them — not just ad spend, because content is where most affiliate campaigns actually spend their money. Second, commission must be net of reversals: sales that were refunded or cancelled, and whose commission was taken back. Count gross commission and the ROI is a fiction.
Try it
Waiting. Enter commission earned and total spend and press Calculate affiliate ROI.
How it works
ROI = ((commission earned − total spend) ÷ total spend) × 100. Profit or loss = commission earned − total spend. Break-even spend = commission earned: the spend at which profit is exactly zero. All three use the same two inputs, so the three answers always agree with each other.
Spend is defined here as everything the campaign cost — advertising plus content creation, tools and any other direct cost. Commission is defined as net of reversals: refunds and cancellations already subtracted. If your program dashboard shows gross commission, subtract reversals first, or the ROI will overstate the result.
Assumptions and limitations
- ROI measures one campaign, or one period, against its own spend. It does not measure risk, and it does not say whether the same money would have earned more elsewhere — that comparison needs the same calculation for the alternative.
- Commission depends on the program's attribution window and reversal rules, which vary. A campaign measured before the window closes may still lose sales to reversals. That is why reversals must be subtracted before the calculation, not after.
- A positive ROI is not a prediction that the next campaign will also be positive. It is a record of what happened, on the numbers you entered.
Worked example
Example: you earned $800 in commission (net of reversals) and spent $500 in total — $300 on ads and $200 on content. Profit = 800 − 500 = $300. ROI = 300 ÷ 500 × 100 = 60%. Break-even spend = $800.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as spend?
Everything the campaign cost: ad spend, content creation, tools and any other direct cost. Content costs are the ones most often forgotten — an article that took ten hours cost ten hours, even if no cash changed hands.
What are reversals, and why do they matter?
Sales that were refunded or cancelled, whose commission the program takes back. A $1,000 commission with $200 reversed is $800 earned. Count the gross figure and the ROI is overstated.
My ROI is negative. Does that mean the campaign failed?
It means the campaign lost money in the period you measured. Check whether the attribution window is still open — late conversions and reversals can still change the result — before deciding.
How is this different from the generic ROI calculator?
The formula is the same, but the inputs are affiliate-specific: commission net of reversals on one side, and ad spend plus content cost on the other. The generic ROI calculator takes any gain and any cost.
What is break-even spend?
The spend at which the campaign makes exactly zero profit: equal to the commission earned. Spend less than that and the campaign is profitable; spend more and it loses money.