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Email marketing ROI calculator

What does your email return once the goods are paid for? Enter the emails delivered, the revenue your platform credits to them, your email costs and your margin.

One campaign, one flow, or all email in a month.

As your email platform reports it, for the same sends.

The platform fee for the period, plus design, copy or agency time if you count it.

What is left of each sale after the cost of the goods.

Shows orders per email and the average order.

Result

Fill in emails delivered, revenue credited to email, email costs, gross margin to see the result.

How it works

Email ROI here is the same return on marketing investment as for any channel: the gross profit on the revenue credited to email, minus what the email cost, divided by that cost.

Two things make email ROI look larger than it is. Counting revenue instead of gross profit treats the cost of the goods as return. And the revenue itself is what your email platform credits to email, which includes sales the emails only touched.

gross profit = revenue × gross margin

email ROI =
  (gross profit - email costs)
  ÷ email costs

revenue per email =
  revenue ÷ emails delivered

revenue per email to break even =
  email costs
  ÷ (emails delivered × gross margin)

What each term means

Emails delivered
Emails that reached an inbox, for one campaign, one flow or a month of sends.
Revenue credited
The revenue your email platform attributes to those emails. What it counts is explained below.
Email costs
The platform fee for the period, plus design, copy or agency time if you want a fully loaded ROI.
Email ROI
Gross profit left after the email costs, per unit of email cost.
Revenue per email
Revenue divided by emails delivered, also called revenue per recipient: the fair way to compare sends of different sizes.
Break-even revenue per email
What each email has to bring in, at your margin, to pay for the program.

What “credited to email” means

Email platforms credit a sale to an email the buyer opened or clicked within a set window. Klaviyo's defaults for new accounts, for one, are five days after an open and five days after a click, and it offers a setting to leave bot clicks and Apple privacy opens out of attribution. So the revenue in your report mixes sales the emails caused with sales they only touched, such as a customer who opened a newsletter and bought through a search ad two days later.

The way to know what email adds is a holdout: leave a random share of the list out of a send or a flow, and compare what the two groups buy.

Worked example

Example numbers, round on purpose. They are not a real store.

Emails delivered
50,000
Revenue credited to email
€6,000
Email costs
€500
Gross margin
50%
Orders credited to email
75
  1. 1Gross profit: €6,000 × 50% = €3,000
  2. 2Gross profit after email costs: €3,000 - €500 = €2,500
  3. 3Email ROI: €2,500 ÷ €500 = 500%
  4. 4Revenue per email: €6,000 ÷ 50,000 = €0.120
  5. 5Revenue per email to break even: €500 ÷ (50,000 × 50%) = €0.020
  6. 6Orders per email delivered: 75 ÷ 50,000 = 0.15%
  7. 7Average order value: €6,000 ÷ 75 = €80.00

Counted on revenue, the same send would read (€6,000 - €500) ÷ €500 = 1,100%. Both use the same numbers; only the second counts the goods as return.

Frequently asked questions

  • How do you calculate email marketing ROI?
    Multiply the revenue credited to email by your gross margin, subtract your email costs, and divide by those costs. €6,000 of revenue at a 50% margin is €3,000 of gross profit; after €500 of costs, €2,500 is left, an ROI of 500%.
  • Why do email ROI figures look so high?
    Mostly because of what goes into them. A revenue-based ROI treats the cost of the goods as return, which multiplies the result, and the revenue is whatever the platform credits to email inside its window. Counted on gross profit, and checked with a holdout, the figure is smaller and more useful.
  • What is revenue per email?
    Revenue divided by emails delivered, also called revenue per recipient. It lets you compare a small, targeted send with a large broadcast: the broadcast can bring in more revenue in total while earning less per email.
  • What should count as email costs?
    At least the platform fee for the period. For a fully loaded ROI, add design, copy, agency time and the tools around your sends. Keep the same choice every period so the trend means something.
  • Should the cost of building the list count?
    Not in a campaign's ROI: that spend bought the list, not this send. It belongs to the channels that grew the list, such as the ads that brought in the sign-ups.
  • How do I know what email really adds?
    Leave a random part of the list out of a send or a flow, and compare what the two groups buy over the same weeks. The difference is what the emails caused; the revenue your platform credits includes sales they only touched.

Related terms: email marketing, abandoned cart email, holdout test and incrementality.

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Next: what does email add next to your other channels?

Email can get the last touch before a sale that another channel started. Your GA4 export already holds how long your buyers take and which channels they touch. First finding free, in your browser; the full read is €99.

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