About Break-Even Calculator
This free break-even calculator tells you exactly how many units you need to sell - or how much revenue you need to generate - before your business covers all its fixed costs and starts making a profit. Enter your total fixed costs, variable cost per unit, and selling price per unit, and the calculator shows your break-even point in units and in revenue, along with your contribution margin.
The break-even point is the number of units at which total revenue equals total costs. Below that number, you are operating at a loss. Above it, every sale contributes to profit. Understanding where that line sits is fundamental to pricing decisions, launch planning, and evaluating whether a new product or project makes financial sense.
Fixed costs are expenses that do not change based on sales volume - rent, salaries, software subscriptions, insurance, and professional fees. Variable costs change with each unit sold - materials, transaction fees, packaging, or direct labor per item. The contribution margin (selling price minus variable cost per unit) tells you how much each sale contributes toward covering fixed costs and then generating profit.
For service businesses without discrete units, use "projects" or "hours" as your unit. Set the variable cost as your direct time cost (your hourly rate times estimated hours per project), enter your project fee as the selling price, and the break-even shows how many projects you need to cover your fixed overhead.
This calculator is intentionally simple. It assumes a single product, a constant selling price, and a fixed margin - which is accurate for most small business analyses. If you have multiple products at different margins, calculate each line separately and weight by expected sales mix.