Free Tool
Break Even Calculator
Find out how many units you need to sell before your business starts making money. Enter your costs and price, and get your break even point in units and revenue.
Rent, salaries, software, insurance -- costs that don't change with sales
Per-unit costs: hosting, shipping, materials, payment fees
What you charge per unit or subscription
Optional
How many units you sell right now -- to see how close you are
About this tool
The Break Even Calculator tells you exactly how many units you need to sell (or customers you need to sign up) before your business starts turning a profit. Enter your fixed costs, variable cost per unit, and selling price, and it does the rest.
It calculates your break even point in units and in revenue, your contribution margin per unit, and shows a visual chart of where costs and revenue cross. For SaaS businesses, 'units' means customers -- if your fixed costs are $10K/month and each customer pays $100/month with $20 in variable costs, you need 125 customers to break even.
Founders use this before launching to sanity-check pricing. If your break even point requires 10,000 customers and your market has 5,000 prospects, your pricing is wrong. If it requires 50 customers and you already have 30, you're close. The math is simple but the clarity it gives is worth it.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Break even point (in units) = Fixed costs / (Selling price per unit - Variable cost per unit). If your monthly fixed costs are $10,000, you sell at $200/unit, and each unit costs $50 to deliver, your break even is 10,000 / (200 - 50) = 67 units.
Fixed costs stay the same regardless of how much you sell: rent, salaries, software subscriptions, insurance. Variable costs change with each sale: hosting per user, payment processing fees, shipping, raw materials. For SaaS, hosting and support costs per customer are variable.
Treat each subscription as a 'unit.' Your fixed costs are team salaries, office, and base infrastructure. Your variable cost is per-customer hosting, support, and onboarding. If break even requires more customers than your market supports, raise your price or cut fixed costs.
Contribution margin = Selling price - Variable cost per unit. It's how much each sale 'contributes' toward covering your fixed costs. A $200 product with $50 variable cost has a $150 contribution margin. Higher margins mean fewer sales needed to break even.
More free tools
Try these next
Need expert help, not just tools?
These tools give you the starting point. Our team helps you execute. Book a free 15-minute call to see if we're a fit.