How many you must sellbefore you make a cent.
Every business has a number where the lights stop costing you money and start making it. Enter your fixed costs, your price, and what each unit costs to make, and find the exact units and revenue you need to break even — and to hit any profit you want on top.
Your numbers
Rent, salaries, software — costs that don't change with volume.
What you sell one for.
What one unit costs to make or deliver.
The verdict
Break-even units
240
Break-even revenue
$19,200
Contribution margin
$50
Price − variable cost.
Margin per unit
62.5%
What's in one unit's price
Reverse-solve · sell past survival
Units to hit a profit target
Units needed
440
Revenue needed
$35,200
To clear $10,000 profit you need 440 units — 200beyond break-even. Past the line, every unit's full $50 contribution drops to profit.
Sensitivity · price moves the line
Break-even units by price
| Price | Contribution | Break-even units |
|---|---|---|
| $64 | $34 | 353 |
| $72 | $42 | 286 |
| $80 | $50 | 240 |
| $88 | $58 | 207 |
| $100 | $70 | 172 |
A small price rise lands entirely in contribution margin, so it cuts the units you must sell faster than any volume push. Discounting does the reverse — it quietly raises the bar every period.
Your move
Know your number. Then build the machine that beats it.
Break-even: 240 units ($19,200) at a $50 contribution margin.
Break-even tells you how many. The harder question is how to sell them profitably and predictably. Bring me your numbers and I'll show you the fastest path past the line — free, on a 30-minute call.
Plain English
The line between losing and making money.
Your break-even point is the number of units you have to sell for total revenue to exactly cover total costs — fixed and variable combined. Sell one unit short of it and you're losing money on the period; sell one past it and every additional sale is profit. It's the most fundamental number in a business, and a surprising number of founders have never actually calculated it.
The engine is contribution margin: price minus variable cost per unit. That's what each sale contributes toward your fixed costs. Divide your fixed costs by that contribution margin and you have the number of units it takes to cover them. The thinner the margin per unit, the more you must sell to stand still.
Knowing this changes decisions. It tells you whether a price is viable, how much a fixed-cost increase (a hire, a bigger lease) really costs in units, and exactly how many sales a profit target demands. This calculator gives you the break-even units and revenue, and the units required for any profit you name.
The formula
Break-even units = Fixed costs ÷ (Price − Variable cost per unit)
$12,000 fixed costs, $80 price, $30 variable cost → contribution margin = $50. Break-even = $12,000 ÷ $50 = 240 units, or $19,200 in revenue. To clear $10,000 profit, you'd need ($12,000 + $10,000) ÷ $50 = 440 units.
Read your break-even
Break-even units feel unreachable.
Either the price is too low or variable costs are too high — both shrink the contribution margin. Fix unit economics before you chase volume you can't hit.
A small price change moves it a lot.
You're margin-sensitive. A modest price rise can cut the units you need dramatically; test it before discounting, which does the opposite.
Fixed costs dominate.
A heavy cost base means a high bar every period. Question the fixed line — a hire or a lease is worth a specific number of extra sales.
Past break-even with room to spare.
Good. Now every marginal sale is near-pure profit — this is where marketing spend pays back fastest.
Lower the number you must hit
01Raise the price
Every dollar of price drops straight into contribution margin and cuts the units you need to break even.
02Cut variable cost
Better sourcing or process lifts margin per unit, lowering the break-even volume.
03Question fixed costs
Each fixed expense translates to a number of units. Make every one earn its volume.
04Lift AOV
Bigger orders mean fewer transactions to cover costs — a faster path to break-even.
05Add a high-margin line
Pairing thin-margin products with fat-margin ones raises the blended contribution per sale.
06Protect price from discounts
Every discount raises your break-even units — discount deliberately, not by habit.
The vocabulary
- Break-even point
- The sales volume where total revenue equals total costs — no profit, no loss.
- Fixed costs
- Costs that don't change with volume — rent, salaries, software.
- Variable cost
- Cost that scales with each unit produced or delivered.
- Contribution margin
- Price minus variable cost — what each sale contributes to fixed costs.
- Margin of safety
- How far current sales sit above the break-even point.
Break-even questions
Divide your fixed costs by the contribution margin per unit (price minus variable cost). $12,000 in fixed costs at a $50 contribution margin gives a 240-unit break-even point. Multiply by price for the revenue figure.
Keep going
A calculator tells you what. A call tells you what to do about it.
Send me the account behind these numbers. I'll tell you straight where the money's leaking and what I'd fix first — free, and you keep it whether you hire me or not.