Educational tool. Not financial advice. Doesn't include exchange fees, slippage, or tax events on intermediate trades that affect the real breakeven price.
Breakeven Point Calculator
Enter your initial investment, monthly revenue, and ongoing costs to see when cumulative revenue crosses total costs.
How to calculate break-even
- Enter your fixed costs — rent, salaries, subscriptions — that you pay regardless of sales volume.
- Enter the variable cost per unit and the price you sell each unit for.
- The calculator returns the break-even quantity — the units you need to sell to cover all costs.
- Compare the break-even to your forecast to see whether the business model is viable at current prices.
Common use cases
- Evaluating whether a new product launch can cover its development and marketing costs within a reasonable timeline.
- Deciding whether to absorb a cost increase or raise prices by modelling the shift in break-even volume.
- Justifying a fixed-cost investment (new machine, hire) by showing the additional units needed to break even on it.
- Running a sensitivity analysis on gross margin to see how price and cost changes ripple through the break-even.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as a fixed cost?
Costs that do not change with production volume — rent, salaries (not commissions), insurance, subscriptions. Variable costs change with each unit — raw materials, per-unit commission, shipping.
Should I include my own salary?
Yes if you are running the business full-time. Leaving out your salary produces an optimistic break-even that masks whether the business actually supports you.
Is break-even the same as profitable?
No. Break-even means zero profit. Anything above covers profit. Most businesses aim for a margin well above break-even to fund growth and withstand bad quarters.
Is my data stored?
No. Calculations run entirely in your browser.
About breakeven analysis
The breakeven point is when total revenue equals total costs. After that point, every additional dollar is profit.
- Breakeven point in months
- Revenue vs costs chart
- Monthly profit and 1-year ROI
- Adjustable ongoing costs
- Export chart as PNG
Free. No signup. Inputs stay in your browser. Ads via AdSense (consent required).
Sources (2)
- Hess, H. (1903). Manufacturing: Capital, costs, profits and dividends. The Engineering Magazine, 26(3), 367–379 (earliest published break-even chart).
- Drury, C. (2018). Management and Cost Accounting (10th ed.). Cengage Learning, chapter 8 — cost-volume-profit analysis.
These are the original publications and regulations the formulas in this calculator are based on. Locate them by author and year on Google Scholar, SSRN, or the U.S. Government Publishing Office.