Use this free break even calculator to estimate how many units and how much sales revenue are needed before a product, service, or project starts making profit.
$5,000 fixed costs / $22.00 contribution
This is a planning estimate. Real break-even can move when refunds, discounts, taxes, capacity, or mixed product sales change.
Estimate how many items must sell before a product launch covers fixed costs.
Compare prices or variable costs before choosing a sales target.
Plan a simple event, class, booth, or small product batch.
Explain contribution margin in plain language before making a budget.
Break-even units and sales
Course sales needed
Event break-even point
Plain-language answers about when to use the estimate, what your numbers mean, what is left out, and how privacy works.
Use it for early planning and side-by-side comparisons, especially for tasks like these: Estimate how many items must sell before a product launch covers fixed costs. Compare prices or variable costs before choosing a sales target. Treat the answer as a planning estimate, not a final quote.
Fixed costs means costs that do not change much with each unit sold, such as rent, setup, software, event fees, or equipment for the period you are planning. Price per unit means the selling price for one item, ticket, service package, or order. Variable cost per unit means the cost that happens for each unit sold, such as materials, packaging, payment fees, or direct labor.
In plain language: The calculator subtracts variable cost per unit from selling price to get contribution margin per unit, then divides fixed costs by that contribution margin. If the result seems too high or too low, first check whether each field expects a monthly amount, annual amount, dollar value, or percent.
Read the main answer first, then use the supporting lines to see why the answer moved. For finance calculators, the extra lines often explain interest, tax, fees, principal, payment timing, or totals paid over time. Those pieces matter because two results can look close at first but cost very different amounts later.
This does not include taxes, refunds, discounts, credit-card fees, inventory shrinkage, mixed product bundles, capacity limits, financing, or accounting advice. Real finance decisions can also depend on fees, timing, local rules, credit details, and provider-specific terms.
Check the rate, time period, compounding or payment frequency, and whether the value is before tax or after tax. A common mistake is mixing monthly and yearly numbers, which can make a finance answer look believable even when it is off by a lot.
Contribution margin is the money left from one sale after the variable cost for that sale is removed. If an item sells for $40 and costs $18 to make, the contribution margin is $22. That $22 helps cover fixed costs first, then becomes profit after break-even.
If price is not higher than variable cost, each sale loses money before fixed costs are even considered. In that situation, selling more units does not create a normal break-even point.
No. The calculator runs in your browser tab. Recent answers stay only on the page while you use it, and they are not sent to a server.