Free calculator
Break-Even Point Calculator
Find how many jobs or units you need to sell in a month, quarter or year to cover the fixed costs you enter — and whether you have the capacity to sell that many.
How many jobs or units must I sell to cover my costs?
Costs that do not change with sales: rent, insurance, software, your own pay, loan repayments
Excluding sales tax you pass on
Costs that come with each sale: materials, subcontracted labour, payment fees, delivery
Compare your capacity with the break-even volume
Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
Result
Enter your numbers
The formulas
Contribution per job = price − variable costContribution margin = contribution ÷ priceBreak-even volume = fixed costs ÷ contribution per job (rounded up to whole jobs)Break-even revenue = break-even volume × priceWorked example
Fixed costs are 3,000 a month. Each job sells for 150 and has 50 of variable costs, so it contributes 100 towards fixed costs (a 66.7% contribution margin). Break-even is 3,000 ÷ 100 = 30 jobs a month, or 4,500 of revenue.
If you can only take on 25 jobs a month, you are 5 jobs short — 500 short of covering the fixed costs at full capacity — so the price, the costs or the capacity would need to change.
What the result means — and what it does not
- It covers only the fixed and variable costs you entered, for one period.
- It assumes one price and one variable cost per job; it does not model a mix of products.
- Breaking even is not the same as having cash: see the cash runway calculator and the 13-week cash-flow forecast.
Common questions
What is the difference between fixed and variable costs?
Fixed costs stay the same whether you sell nothing or a lot in the period: rent, insurance, software, salaries and your own pay. Variable costs come with each sale: materials, subcontracted labour, payment fees and delivery. Put each cost in one place only.
Does break-even mean all my costs are covered?
Only the costs you entered. If you left out your own pay, loan repayments or tax, the break-even volume does not cover them. The result lists exactly what is included.
Why is the number of jobs rounded up?
You cannot sell part of a job. If the exact break-even point is 33.3 jobs, 33 jobs still leaves a small shortfall, so you need 34.
What if each job loses money?
If the price is at or below the variable cost, each job contributes nothing or less than nothing towards fixed costs, so there is no break-even volume: selling more does not help. The calculator says so instead of showing a number.
How is this different from the break-even ROAS calculator?
Break-even ROAS is about advertising: the return on ad spend needed for ads to pay for themselves. This calculator is about the whole business: how many sales cover your fixed costs in a period.