Break-Even Calculator.
The sales figure where the business stops costing you money and starts making it.
Break-even is fixed costs divided by the contribution each sale makes toward them (price minus variable cost). Below that volume every month costs you money; above it, each extra sale drops its full contribution to the bottom line. Knowing the number changes pricing, hiring and nerve — Everything runs in your browser — your figures never leave it. Estimates are general information, not advice: ask us about your own position.
The number one number
Know the day the month starts paying you.
Every business has a sales figure where it stops costing money and starts making it — and surprisingly few owners know theirs. The mechanics are honest: each sale contributes its price minus its variable cost toward the fixed costs; break-even is simply how many of those contributions the fixed costs swallow. Below it, every month ends in the red no matter how busy it felt. Above it, each additional sale drops its entire contribution straight to profit — which is why months just past break-even feel so different from months just under.
The number changes behaviour the day you learn it. Pricing stops being guesswork (“can we afford the discount?” becomes arithmetic), hiring gets a threshold (“the new salary moves break-even by X sales — can we sell X more?”), and the quiet January stops being frightening because you know precisely how far you are from the line. This is exactly the kind of figure our management accounts put in front of clients monthly, with the real numbers.
Common questions.
What counts as a fixed versus a variable cost?
Fixed: costs that arrive regardless of sales — rent, salaries, insurance, software, our fee. Variable: costs each sale creates — materials, direct labour, card fees, delivery. Some costs are a blend (staff overtime, utilities); put the predictable core in fixed and the per-sale excess in variable.
What is a margin of safety?
How far current sales sit above break-even, usually as a percentage. Ten sales above a 100-sale break-even is a 9% cushion — one bad month from trouble. The margin of safety is the single quickest read on how fragile a profitable-looking business actually is.
How do I lower my break-even point?
Three levers: raise the price (helps twice — more contribution per sale, and fewer sales needed), cut the variable cost per sale, or cut fixed costs. Small price rises usually beat heroic volume pushes: a 10% price rise often cuts the break-even volume by more than a 10% cost cut does.
Keep going.
Margin & Markup Calculator
Get the price right first — margin and markup are not the same number.
Open →Loan Repayment Calculator
Borrowing adds a fixed cost — see what it does to the monthly line.
Open →Management accounts
Break-even, margins and cash — tracked monthly with your real figures.
Open →Prefer a human with the numbers?
If you don't know your break-even, your management accounts should be telling you — and if you don't have those, that's the conversation.