Run your discount strategy through a real P&L lens before you touch your campaigns. Free, instant, no form to fill out.
A discount lowers the price a customer pays, which can lower the ROAS threshold needed to look profitable on a dashboard, but it doesn't lower what you spent acquiring them. This simulator shows the true acquisition cost per delivered order once the discount, COGS, and RTO are all accounted for, not just the reported ROAS.
ROAS compares revenue to ad spend only. A steeper discount raises revenue relative to spend, which improves ROAS, while shrinking the margin left on every order. It's possible to hit a better ROAS and a worse contribution margin in the same promotion.
There's no fixed safe number, it depends on your starting gross margin and RTO rate. A 20% discount is comfortable at a 60% margin and dangerous at a 35% one. The simulator models your actual inputs instead of applying a generic rule of thumb.
A discounted order that comes back as a return costs the full acquisition spend and the discount, with zero revenue to offset either. Running discount math without factoring in RTO systematically overstates how profitable a promotion actually was.
How do discounts actually affect CAC? They lower what a customer pays, which can make ROAS look better, but they don't lower what you spent acquiring that customer. The real number to watch is contribution margin after the discount, not ROAS.
Why can a discount that improves ROAS still hurt profit? ROAS only compares revenue to ad spend. A deeper discount can raise that ratio while shrinking the actual margin left on the order.
What discount depth is safe for a D2C brand? It depends on starting gross margin and RTO rate, not a fixed percentage. Model your own numbers rather than borrowing someone else's rule of thumb.
How does RTO change the picture? A discounted order that gets returned costs the acquisition spend and the discount with no revenue to offset either, which is easy to miss if RTO isn't in the model.
How does this connect to contribution margin? Contribution margin is the number a discount actually eats into. This simulator and the Contribution Margin Calculator are built to close the same blind spot from two directions.