Break-Even Calculator
How many units (or revenue dollars) you need to sell to cover fixed costs. Returns break-even units, revenue, and contribution-margin breakdown.
About the Break-Even Calculator
The Break-Even Calculator pinpoints the exact sales volume where revenue equals total costs and profit becomes positive. Enter your selling price, variable cost per unit, and monthly fixed costs; the tool returns break-even units, break-even revenue, and the contribution margin per sale.
Break-even analysis is the first sanity check on any new product, store, or service line. If the break-even number is achievable in a realistic time frame, the business model has a shot. If it requires unprecedented sales volume, the math is broken before you start - better to discover that on a calculator than after spending six months on launch.
Common use cases
- Validate a new product launch before committing to inventory
- Set monthly sales targets that actually cover overhead
- Decide whether a pricing change will hurt or help cash flow
- Compare two business models with different cost structures
Tips for accurate results
Raising price almost always lowers break-even faster than cutting variable cost. Every dollar of price increase flows straight to contribution margin, while cost cuts typically require operational changes. Test a 5-10% price increase scenario in the calculator before assuming you need higher volume to fix the unit economics.
Privacy & data handling
The Break-Even Calculator runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is uploaded, logged, or shared with third parties - the math happens locally and your inputs disappear when you close the tab. There is no signup, no email collection, and no daily-use limit.
What is the break-even point?
It's the sales volume where total revenue exactly equals total costs (fixed + variable) - profit is zero. Above break-even, every additional unit contributes its contribution margin to profit. Below it, you're losing money on the fixed-cost overhang.
What is contribution margin?
Contribution margin is selling price minus variable cost per unit - the dollar amount each sale contributes toward covering fixed costs. If you sell at $50 with $30 variable cost, each sale contributes $20. To cover $10,000 in fixed costs, you need 500 units.
How do I lower my break-even point?
Three levers: raise price, lower variable cost per unit (better suppliers, automation), or cut fixed overhead (rent, salaries, subscriptions). Raising price is usually the highest-leverage move because contribution margin grows on every sale, not just the marginal ones.
What if I have multiple products?
Compute a weighted-average contribution margin based on your expected sales mix, then divide fixed cost by that weighted margin to get break-even units in the aggregate. The tool's multi-product mode handles this - input each product's price, variable cost, and expected sales-mix percentage.
Is break-even useful for SaaS?
Yes, but think in MRR not units. Break-even MRR = monthly fixed costs ÷ (1 − variable cost ratio). For a $50/mo product with $5 of variable cost (payment fees, support), and $20,000/mo fixed costs, you'd need ~445 active accounts to break even.
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