Amazon Dayparting Calculator.
Estimate what the hours you are thinking of pausing cost you each month, and what they bring in. Every input comes from your own hourly report, so the result is about your account and nobody else's.
The two percentages have to come from your own hourly report. Add up spend in the hours you are considering pausing and divide by total spend, then do the same for ad sales. The hourly ACoS guide shows how to pull the report, and how to read Amazon hourly performance data covers which days to leave out.
How it is calculated.
The estimator takes the share of your day's spend and sales that fall in a block of hours and scales it to a month. Nothing is assumed about how those hours should perform. It only reflects what you enter.
Monthly ad sales from those hours = daily ad sales × share of sales × 30
ACoS in those hours = their spend ÷ their sales
ACoS across the day = daily ad spend ÷ daily ad sales
The comparison that matters is the last two lines. If the hours you are looking at run at a much higher ACoS than the day as a whole, they are a candidate for a pause or a lower budget. If they run close to the daily figure, pausing them mostly just shrinks your sales.
A worked example.
This is an illustrative example with made-up numbers for a fictional brand. Sunhollow Supply spends $200 a day on ads and those ads produce $800 a day in sales. Its hourly report shows that midnight to 6am takes 18% of the day's spend and returns 6% of the day's ad sales.
| Daily spend in those hours: $200 × 18% | $36.00 |
| Daily ad sales in those hours: $800 × 6% | $48.00 |
| Monthly spend in those hours | $1,080.00 |
| Monthly ad sales from those hours | $1,440.00 |
| ACoS in those hours: 36 ÷ 48 | 75.0% |
| ACoS across the whole day: 200 ÷ 800 | 25.0% |
Those six hours run at a 75% ACoS against 25% for the day. Pausing them would free about $1,080 a month and give up about $1,440 in ad sales that cost three times as much to win as the rest. Whether that trade is right depends on Sunhollow Supply's break-even, which is why the next step is to check it.
What to do with the number.
Check it against your break-even first. A block of hours is only a problem if its ACoS is above what the product can carry. The break-even ACoS calculator gives you that ceiling.
Make sure the pattern is real. A week of data with a sale day in it can make any hour look bad. Does Amazon dayparting work covers when the difference between your best and worst hours is large enough to act on, and the hours Amazon sellers should never advertise covers how to confirm a dead window.
Decide what happens to the freed spend. Pausing saves money only if you leave it saved. Moving it into your stronger hours is a different decision with a different result. The cost of running Amazon ads overnight walks through both.
Then build the schedule. The dayparting starter guide takes you from the hourly report to a first schedule, and the Amazon dayparting guide covers the full approach.
Frequently asked questions.
What does an Amazon dayparting calculator do?
It estimates how much of your monthly ad spend falls in a block of hours you are thinking of pausing, how much ad sales those hours bring in, and how their ACoS compares with the rest of the day. It works from the percentages in your own hourly report.
Where do I get the share of spend and sales by hour?
From an hourly performance report for your campaigns. Add up spend for the hours you would pause and divide by total spend for the day, then do the same with ad sales. Use at least a few weeks of data and leave out sale days and stock-outs.
Does this calculator use average or benchmark data?
No. Nothing is pre-filled and no typical values are assumed. Hourly patterns differ by product, category and marketplace, so the only numbers that mean anything here are your own.
Will pausing my worst hours save the full amount shown?
It frees that much spend if those hours keep behaving the way they did in your report. You also give up the ad sales those hours produced, which is shown next to it. Some shoppers may come back and buy in another hour, and some will not, which is why this is an estimate and not a forecast.
How do I know if an hour is worth pausing?
Compare its ACoS with your break-even ACoS and with your ACoS across the whole day. Hours that sit well above both, consistently, across several weeks, are candidates. Hours that are only slightly worse than average usually are not worth the lost sales.
Should I pause the hours or lower the budget?
Pausing is the simplest and makes sense when the hours are clearly unprofitable. If they are weak but not hopeless, lowering bids or budget for those hours keeps some presence at a lower cost. Either way, review the result after one to two weeks.