Break-even calculator
How many you must sell before the fixed costs are paid off and profit starts.
- Runs in your browser — nothing you enter is uploaded
- No sign-up, no quotas, free to use as often as you like
How it works
Break-even is the one number that tells you whether a price makes sense. It falls out of a single idea: every unit sold contributes what is left after its own variable cost, and those contributions pay down the fixed costs until they are gone.
Contribution is the number that matters
Price minus variable cost is the contribution per unit. Divide the fixed costs by it and you have the break-even volume. If contribution is zero or negative, no amount of selling ever breaks even — you are losing money on each unit and making it up on volume, which does not work. The tool says so outright rather than returning a strange number.
Fixed and variable
Fixed costs do not move with volume: rent, salaries, software, insurance. Variable costs do: materials, packaging, per-unit shipping, payment fees. Getting an item into the wrong column is the usual source of a wrong answer — payment processing in particular is variable, and people often bury it in overheads.
Planning for a profit, not just survival
Enter a target profit and it is treated as another fixed cost to cover, which gives the volume you actually need rather than the volume that merely avoids a loss.
What it assumes
One price, one product, and costs that behave in straight lines. Real businesses have discounts at volume, suppliers whose prices step at quantities, and fixed costs that jump when you outgrow a space. Treat break-even as a floor to sanity-check a price against.
Break-even calculator — questions
What is contribution margin?
The share of each sale left after its variable cost, expressed as a percentage of the price. It is what pays down your fixed costs.
What if the price is below the variable cost?
Then there is no break-even point at any volume, and the tool says so. The price or the cost has to change.
Should payment fees be fixed or variable?
Variable — they scale with each sale. Putting them in fixed costs understates your break-even.
Does it handle several products?
No. It assumes a single price and cost. For a mixed range, run it on a weighted average or on your main line.
Is anything sent anywhere?
No. It runs in your browser.