Break-even and payback calculator
How many sales a month does your business need before it stops losing money, and how long until you earn back what you put in? Enter your own numbers below. They stay in your browser: nothing you type is stored or sent anywhere.
Your numbers
Enter a price, a cost per sale and your fixed costs to see the result.
How it is calculated
- Margin per sale = price − cost per sale.
- Break-even sales = fixed costs ÷ margin per sale, rounded up.
- Monthly profit = expected sales × margin per sale − fixed costs.
- Payback period = start-up money ÷ monthly profit.
A worked example (invented numbers)
A coffee cart sells a cup for 15. The coffee, milk and cup cost 5, so the margin is 10. Rent, wages and its other fixed costs come to 9,000 a month, so it needs 9,000 ÷ 10 = 900 cups a month to break even: about 30 a day. At 1,500 cups a month it makes 1,500 × 10 − 9,000 = 6,000 a month, and 36,000 of start-up money comes back in 36,000 ÷ 6,000 = 6 months. These numbers are made up to show the method. They are not market data.
What this does not tell you
- Whether anyone will buy. The sales figure is your estimate: test it with real customers before you rely on it.
- Slow months. Most businesses take months to reach their usual sales, and some months are seasonal. The payback period assumes every month is like the one you entered.
- Tax, financing and your own salary, unless you have included them in the costs above.
Numbers are one part of the picture
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