Free break even calculator for businesses worldwide. Find out how many units you need to sell to cover your costs.
Hit a big milestone once you’re past break-even? Mi Gazette distributes press releases to Business Insider, Reuters, Yahoo Finance, and AP News.
See our services →How the break even calculator works
This free break even calculator quickly shows businesses worldwide exactly how many units need to be sold to cover fixed and variable costs, with no profit or loss.
- Enter your fixed costs for the period — rent, salaries, subscriptions.
- Enter your price per unit and your variable cost per unit.
- The calculator instantly shows your contribution margin, break-even units, and break-even revenue.
Why contribution margin is the number that actually matters
Contribution margin — price minus variable cost — determines how many units it takes to cover fixed costs. A product with a thin contribution margin needs far higher sales volume to break even than one with a healthy margin, even at exactly the same price point. Understanding this number changes how a business thinks about pricing, not just about volume.
What break-even doesn’t tell you
Break-even analysis assumes costs and prices stay constant, which rarely holds exactly true — bulk discounts, seasonal demand, and changing supplier costs all shift the real picture. Treat the break-even point as a planning benchmark to recalculate periodically, not a fixed target that stays accurate indefinitely.
Break-even in revenue versus break-even in units
Some businesses find a break even point calculator based on revenue more useful than one based on units, particularly when selling multiple products at different prices where a single “units” figure doesn’t mean much. Dividing fixed costs by the overall margin percentage, rather than a single product’s contribution margin, gives a revenue-based break-even figure that works across a full product line instead of one item at a time. This kind of break even analysis calculator approach scales better once a business sells more than one thing.
Using break-even analysis before setting a price
Working backward from a target break-even point — how many units could realistically sell in a given period — helps sanity-check a price before it’s set, rather than discovering after launch that the volume needed to break even was never realistic. Running the numbers a few different ways, at a few different price points, tends to reveal pricing problems early enough to actually fix them.
Frequently asked questions
Is the break even calculator free to use?
Yes, with no signup and no limit on how many calculations you run.
What’s the break-even formula?
Break-even units = Fixed Costs ÷ (Price per Unit − Variable Cost per Unit).
What if my variable cost is higher than my price?
You can never break even at that price — you’re losing money on every unit sold, regardless of volume. The price needs to increase or the variable cost needs to decrease.
How often should I recalculate my break-even point?
Whenever a major cost or price changes — a new supplier rate, a pricing update — since the old break-even figure stops being accurate the moment any input shifts.
Is my data stored anywhere?
No. The calculator runs entirely in your browser — nothing you enter is sent to a server or saved.
For more on planning and publicly announcing a business milestone, see Mi Gazette’s press and media services.