Why your Instamart ROAS is lying to you

Last updated: March 2026

You check your Instamart ad console. It says 4.2x ROAS. You feel good. You shouldn't.

The problem with platform ROAS

Platform ROAS = Revenue / Ad Spend. That's it. It doesn't know:

• Your COGS — what it actually costs to make or source your product
• Logistics costs — warehouse, packaging, last-mile delivery
• Platform commissions — Instamart takes 15-25% depending on your category
• GST — because that "revenue" includes tax you don't keep
• Return and cancellation costs — Instamart's return rate runs 3-8% depending on category, and every returned order still carries the ad cost that drove it

This is why platform ROAS is one of the most misleading metrics in Q-commerce. It inflates every campaign's apparent performance, making ad waste invisible until you check your P&L statement at the end of the month. And it's not just Instamart — this applies equally to Blinkit and Zepto.

A real example: staples brand

Let's say you sell a rice product at ₹499 MRP on Instamart.

If you spent ₹120 in ads to get that sale, your platform ROAS is 4.2x (499/120). Looks great.

Your True ROAS is 1.24x (149/120). You made ₹29 profit. One more keyword bid increase and you're losing money.

A second example: personal care brand

Now take a personal care product at ₹349 MRP with better margins:

Ad spend of ₹80 per sale gives a platform ROAS of 4.4x (349/80) but a True ROAS of 1.6x (128/80). The gap is smaller because margins are healthier — but a ₹20 bid increase would still push True ROAS below 1.2x.

How True ROAS varies by category

The gap between platform ROAS and True ROAS isn't uniform. It depends heavily on your category's margin structure:

Staples brands are most at risk — high commissions, low margins, and high CPC competition mean that a "healthy" 4x platform ROAS can easily be a money-losing 0.9x True ROAS.

The ACOS cross-check

ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sales) is the inverse lens that makes waste obvious. If your ACOS exceeds your gross margin percentage, every ad-driven sale is a net loss — regardless of what the platform ROAS number says.

If your Instamart dashboard shows an ACOS of 28% and your gross margin is 22%, you are losing 6% on every ad-driven order. That's the number your platform ROAS was hiding.

Why this problem is worse on Instamart than other platforms

Instamart's commission structure is among the highest in Indian Q-commerce — 15-25% vs. Blinkit's 12-20% and Zepto's 10-18%. That higher commission compresses your margin further, widening the gap between platform ROAS and True ROAS. Brands running identical campaigns on all three platforms often find that Instamart campaigns showing the same platform ROAS are actually the least profitable when costs are factored in.

This is why platform-specific budget pacing matters. A campaign that's profitable on Zepto at ₹15 CPC may be unprofitable on Instamart at the same CPC because of the commission difference. For more on cross-platform spend allocation, see our Zepto vs Blinkit spend comparison.

What you should do

1. Calculate your True ROAS for every platform — factor in all costs, not just ad spend vs revenue. Do this per SKU, not as a blended average.
2. Set your break-even True ROAS — for most Q-com brands, it's between 1.0x and 1.5x
3. Kill campaigns below break-even — that "4x ROAS" campaign might actually be losing money
4. Track ACOS alongside ROAS — ACOS is a more intuitive metric for spotting waste. If your ACOS exceeds your gross margin percentage, you're losing money on every sale
5. Audit weekly, not monthly — a bad keyword can drain thousands in a week. Use your search term reports to catch ad waste early
6. Use dayparting — running ads during dead hours inflates spend without proportional returns, making True ROAS even worse
7. Separate branded vs. generic keyword ROAS — branded keywords inflate blended ROAS because they convert cheaply. Blending them hides the fact that your generic keyword campaigns may be underwater

How Ladya helps

Ladya doesn't just track platform ROAS. When you add your cost structure (COGS, logistics, commissions), she calculates True ROAS automatically — and alerts you when a "winning" campaign is actually losing money. She also runs bid management that optimises for True ROAS, not vanity ROAS, so your budget flows to campaigns that actually make money.

Run a free Ad Waste Audit to see the gap between your platform ROAS and True ROAS across all your Q-commerce campaigns.

Stop celebrating vanity metrics. Know your real numbers.