Amazon TACoS calculator.
TACoS measures ad spend against everything you sold, not just the sales the ads claimed. It is the number that answers a question ACOS cannot: is advertising growing the business, or has the business become advertising?
Campaign spend for one marketplace, for the period.
Everything you sold on that marketplace in the same period — advertised and organic, excluding tax you collect.
Add this to see ACOS beside TACoS and how much of the business is organic.
8.00%
Advertising cost 8.00% of everything the business sold.
One month of TACoS says almost nothing. Run this again on last month's numbers — the direction it moved in while revenue moved is the whole signal.
How it is worked out.
TACoS = Ad Spend ÷ Total Revenue × 100
- Ad Spend
- The same spend figure ACOS uses — what the campaigns cost.
- Total Revenue
- Everything you sold in the period on that marketplace: advertised sales plus organic sales. Not the attributed figure from the ads report.
The spend and the revenue must cover the same marketplace and the same dates. Amazon-only spend over Amazon-plus-Flipkart revenue produces a lovely number that means nothing.
With real numbers.
Same seller, same month as the ACOS example.
| Ad spend | ₹18,400 |
|---|---|
| Attributed ad revenue | ₹64,000 |
| Total revenue (ads + organic) | ₹2,30,000 |
18,400 ÷ 2,30,000 × 100 = 8.00% TACoS
Advertising cost 8% of everything the business sold. The identical spend showed a 28.75% ACOS, because ACOS only counts the ₹64,000 the ads were credited with — the other ₹1,66,000 arrived without an ad.
What the number means.
TACoS is close to useless as a single reading and very hard to argue with as a trend. What matters is the direction it moves in while revenue moves.
| Range | Verdict | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Falling, revenue rising | Working | Advertising is buying customers who return and listings that rank. The best pattern on this list, and the one that justifies a high ACOS during a launch. |
| Flat, revenue rising | Steady | Ads are scaling in proportion with the business. Perfectly normal for an established catalogue, and no cause for action. |
| Rising, revenue rising | Buying growth | Fine when it is deliberate — a launch, a category push, a seasonal land-grab. Expensive if it has quietly been true for six months. |
| Rising, revenue flat | Warning | You are paying more for the same sales. Something changed: a competitor started bidding, a listing lost the Buy Box, reviews slipped, or bids drifted upward without anyone deciding they should. |
| Above your total margin | Underwater | Advertising is consuming more than the business earns. This can be true while every individual campaign still shows an acceptable ACOS, which is exactly why TACoS is worth computing. |
A falling TACoS is the only real evidence that advertising is compounding — that the rank it bought is now producing sales it is not paying for.
Where this goes wrong.
- 01
Dividing by ad revenue instead of total revenue
That is ACOS with extra steps. TACoS exists precisely because the denominator is the whole business.
- 02
Reading one month in isolation
An 8% TACoS is neither good nor bad. An 8% TACoS that was 6% three months ago on the same revenue is a problem you can name.
- 03
Expecting TACoS to fall during a launch
A new product has no organic sales to dilute the spend, so TACoS starts near ACOS and only separates as rank builds. Judging a launch on TACoS in month one will kill campaigns that were working.
- 04
Comparing your TACoS to another seller's
TACoS reflects how much of a catalogue is mature. A seller with five years of ranked listings and one new launch will always show a lower TACoS than a seller launching their whole range, and neither is running better ads.
- 05
Putting GST-inclusive revenue in the denominator
Tax you collect and pass on is not revenue. Including it shrinks TACoS by roughly the tax rate and makes advertising look cheaper than it is.
The rest of the set.
Where the real numbers live.
- Amazon Business Report (By ASIN)
Where the total-revenue side of TACoS comes from: sessions, units and ordered product sales per ASIN, ads and organic together.
- Amazon Budget Planner
Work the other way round — start from a monthly budget and see the TACoS it implies before you spend it.
- Ecommerce Margin Calculator
TACoS only means something next to your total margin. Work that out first, then compare the two.
TACoS tells you something is wrong. It never tells you what.
A rising TACoS on flat revenue has a handful of possible causes and they leave different fingerprints in the reports. The PPC Audit module reads a search-term export and separates them: spend moving to new terms, bids drifting up, or conversion falling on traffic you already had.
Questions people actually ask.
What is a good TACoS?
For an established catalogue, somewhere in the region of 5–15% is common — but the level matters far less than the direction. A TACoS of 15% that has been falling for six months on rising revenue is healthier than a 6% TACoS that has doubled since April. The one hard limit is your total net margin: above that, advertising is consuming the business.
TACoS vs ACOS — which should I optimise?
Optimise campaigns on ACOS and judge the account on TACoS. ACOS is actionable at the keyword level; TACoS is only meaningful across a whole product or account and over months. They answer different questions and neither replaces the other.
Why is my TACoS rising while my ACOS falls?
Because organic sales are shrinking. If ads become more efficient but total revenue falls faster than spend, the ratio of spend to total revenue still climbs. It usually means the ads are increasingly the only thing selling — a listing that lost rank, reviews or the Buy Box while campaign efficiency stayed fine.
Should TACoS always go down?
No. It should fall for a maturing product, hold steady for a stable catalogue, and rise deliberately when you are launching or defending. A TACoS that only ever falls usually means nothing new is being launched.
What TACoS should a new product have?
A high one — often close to its ACOS, because there are no organic sales yet to dilute the spend. The number to watch is the gap opening between TACoS and ACOS over the following weeks. If it never opens, the advertising is buying sales but not rank.