Find the break-even point for your business - the number of units and revenue needed to cover your fixed and variable costs - from your costs and selling price.
How to Use the Break-Even Calculator
Enter your total "Fixed Costs (₹)" - rent, salaries, and other costs that don't change with output.
Enter your "Variable Cost Per Unit (₹)" - materials, packaging, or other costs that scale with each unit produced.
Enter your "Selling Price Per Unit (₹)".
Click "Calculate Break-Even Point" to see how many units you need to sell (and how much revenue) to cover all your costs.
Break-Even Formulas
Contribution margin per unit = Selling price − Variable cost per unit. This is what each sale leaves over to pay fixed costs.
Break-even units = Fixed costs ÷ Contribution margin per unit.
Break-even revenue = Break-even units × Selling price, which is the same as Fixed costs ÷ Contribution margin ratio.
Use the same period for everything. If you enter monthly rent and salaries as fixed costs, the answer is the number of units you need to sell each month.
Worked Example: A Small Café
A café pays ₹60,000 rent, ₹70,000 in staff salaries and about ₹20,000 for electricity, internet and software every month, so fixed costs are ₹1,50,000. A meal sells for ₹200 (before GST) and the ingredients, packaging and payment charges for it come to ₹120.
Contribution margin = 200 − 120 = ₹80 per meal, a ratio of 40%.
Break-even = 1,50,000 ÷ 80 = 1,875 meals a month, or about 63 a day over 30 days.
Break-even revenue = 1,875 × 200 = ₹3,75,000 a month.
To earn a profit of ₹50,000 a month, add it to fixed costs: (1,50,000 + 50,000) ÷ 80 = 2,500 meals. If the café actually sells 2,200 meals, it is 325 meals above break-even. That gap, as a share of sales (about 14.8%), is its margin of safety: how far sales can fall before it starts losing money.
How Price Changes the Break-Even Point
Same café, same costs, three different menu prices:
Selling price
Contribution per unit
Break-even units
Break-even revenue
₹180
₹60
2,500
₹4,50,000
₹200
₹80
1,875
₹3,75,000
₹220
₹100
1,500
₹3,30,000
A 10% price cut raises the break-even volume by a third, because it comes entirely out of the contribution margin. The same logic works for costs: if ingredient prices rise from ₹120 to ₹132, break-even goes up from 1,875 to about 2,206 meals. Before offering discounts, check how many extra sales you would need just to stand still.
Common Mistakes
Including GST in the selling price. GST collected is passed on to the government, so use the price before GST, and use costs net of any input tax credit you can claim.
Treating loan EMIs as one fixed cost. The interest part is a cost; the principal repayment is not, though it still needs cash.
Leaving out small variable costs such as card or UPI payment charges, delivery app commission or packaging. They reduce the contribution margin on every unit.
Reading a fractional result literally. If the answer is 1,875.4 units, you need 1,876 to cover costs, so always round up.
Using one average price when you sell several products with different margins. Either use a weighted average contribution based on your sales mix, or work out break-even revenue using the overall contribution margin ratio.
Frequently Asked Questions
Break-Even Units = Fixed Costs ÷ (Selling Price Per Unit - Variable Cost Per Unit). The denominator is called the "contribution margin per unit" - the amount each unit sold contributes toward covering fixed costs after variable costs.
It's the contribution margin per unit expressed as a percentage of the selling price. A higher ratio means more of each sale goes toward covering fixed costs and generating profit once you're past break-even.
Then there's no break-even point - every unit sold loses money regardless of volume, since the contribution margin is negative. The calculator will show an error in this case.
Add the profit you want to your fixed costs and enter the total as "Fixed Costs". The break-even units the calculator then shows are the units needed to cover all costs and earn that profit.
Fixed costs stay the same whatever you sell in the period: rent, permanent staff salaries, insurance, software subscriptions and loan interest. Variable costs rise with each unit sold: raw materials, packaging, shipping, sales commission and payment gateway fees. Costs such as electricity can be partly both; split them as best you can.