Break-Even Calculator

The number that tells you if a price works

Break-even is the point where total revenue equals total cost — the first unit beyond it is profit. It is driven by your contribution margin: the price of one unit minus the variable cost of making or delivering it. Divide your fixed costs by that margin and you have the units you must sell.

If the contribution margin is zero or negative, no volume saves you — each sale loses money, and the price or cost structure has to change first.

Using it to set a price

Flip the question around: pick a sales volume you believe is realistic, and the calculator's break-even tells you whether your current price clears your fixed costs at that volume. If break-even sits above what you can plausibly sell, raise the price or cut fixed costs.

Your own time is a fixed cost, even when unpaid

Most freelancers calculating break-even leave out the largest cost in the business: themselves. If the model only covers software, insurance, and hardware, break-even means the point at which the business stops losing money while paying you nothing — which is not a threshold worth knowing.

Put your target salary into the fixed costs. The break-even that results answers the question you actually have: how much revenue do I need before I am genuinely paid, not merely solvent? For most solo businesses that figure lands somewhere between two and three times the naive one, and seeing it stated plainly is often what triggers a long-overdue rate increase.