Break-even Calculator
How many units pay for the fixed costs, and what the contribution per unit has to be before the answer is a number at all.
Price per unit $49.00
Variable cost per unit $12.00
Fixed costs $8,000.00
Contribution per unit $37.00
Contribution margin 75.5%
Break-even units 217
Break-even revenue $10,633.00
Units for $5,000.00 profit 352
Revenue at that point $17,248.00
Each unit contributes $37.00 towards the fixed costs, so it takes 217 of
them to cover $8,000.00. Raising the price by one unit of currency cuts
the break-even point faster than cutting the variable cost by the same
amount, because it widens the contribution and the denominator at once.
Below break-even, revenue of $10,633.00 is the line to watch rather than
the unit count: it is the number a monthly report shows.
Output is valid and updates as you type.
Fix the highlighted fields to update the output.
Break-even is fixed costs divided by the contribution each sale makes. The unit count is what people come for; the contribution per unit is what actually decides the answer, because when it is small no amount of rearranging the fixed costs helps.
How to use
- Put in the price per unit and the variable cost per unit. Variable means per sale: materials, shipping, the payment processing fee.
- Put in the fixed costs for the period you care about, usually a month.
- Read the contribution per unit first, then the unit count.
- Add a target profit to see the volume that clears the costs and leaves something.
Example
A 49 product with 12 of variable cost and 8,000 of monthly fixed costs:
Price per unit $49.00
Variable cost per unit $12.00
Fixed costs $8,000.00
Contribution per unit $37.00
Contribution margin 75.5%
Break-even units 217
Break-even revenue $10,633.00
Units for $5,000.00 profit 352Two hundred and seventeen sales a month to stand still. The useful part is what moves that number. Adding a dollar to the price takes the contribution to 38 and break-even to 211. Taking a dollar off the variable cost does the same thing. Cutting 500 from fixed costs takes it to 203. Whichever of those three is easiest for you is the one to do first, and they are rarely equally easy.
Pitfalls
A contribution of zero or less has no break-even. If each sale loses money, selling more loses more. The tool says “never” rather than printing a very large number, because the fix is the unit economics and not the volume.
Fixed and variable is a judgement, not a fact. A salaried delivery team is fixed; the same people on contract per project are variable. Put each cost where it actually behaves, and if a cost steps up at a certain volume, work out break-even on both sides of the step.
One period at a time. Monthly fixed costs against monthly volume. Mixing an annual software bill into a monthly figure inflates break-even by a twelfth of a year.
Break-even is not survival. It covers the costs in the model and nothing else: no tax, no loan repayment, no owner’s drawings unless you put them in fixed costs. Many businesses need to clear break-even by a wide margin to be viable.
Half a sale is not a sale. The unit count is rounded up, because 216.2 units means 217.
Compatibility
Arithmetic in the browser. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is stored, and the share link carries the figures so a scenario can be sent to a partner exactly as you ran it.
The currency only changes the formatting; yen rounds to whole units.