ROAS vs ROI: What's the Difference?

ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) is revenue generated divided by ad spend alone, usually expressed as a ratio - a 4x ROAS means every ₹1 spent produced ₹4 in revenue. It only accounts for media spend.

ROI (Return on Investment) is profit divided by total investment - media spend, plus product cost, plus fulfilment, plus the team's time, plus any tooling - expressed as a percentage. It accounts for everything a campaign actually costs to run, not just the ad platform bill.

The gap between them is where campaigns quietly go wrong. A 4x ROAS on a low-margin product with high fulfilment costs can still lose money once the full picture is accounted for, while a modest 2x ROAS on a high-margin, low-overhead product can be genuinely profitable. ROAS is useful as a fast, in-platform optimisation signal during a campaign; ROI is the number that should decide whether the campaign was actually worth running.