Calculate how many units you need to sell to cover your costs.
Rent, salaries, insurance, etc.
What you charge customers.
Materials, labor, and shipping per item.
Your Analysis Results
Break-Even Units
0
Break-Even Sales ($)
$0.00
Contribution Margin:0%
Understanding Break-Even Analysis
The Break-Even Point (BEP) is the fundamental milestone in business where total revenue exactly equals total costs. Beyond this point, your business starts generating profit. Below this point, your business is operating at a loss.
How to Calculate Break-Even Point
Our calculator uses the standard contribution margin formula to determine your financial threshold:
Fixed Costs: Expenses that don't change regardless of sales volume (Rent, insurance, salaries).
Variable Costs: Expenses that increase directly with production (Raw materials, packaging, sales commissions).
Contribution Margin: The amount left over from each sale after paying variable costs (Price – Variable Cost).
Formula: Break-Even Units = Total Fixed Costs / (Price Per Unit – Variable Cost Per Unit)
A Practical Example
Imagine you run a candle business. Your monthly rent and utilities (Fixed Costs) are $2,000. You sell each candle for $25 (Price), and the wax, wick, and jar cost you $10 (Variable Cost) to make.
Your contribution margin per candle is $15 ($25 – $10). To find your break-even point, you divide $2,000 by $15, which equals 134 candles per month. Every candle sold after the 134th contributes directly to your profit.
function calculateBreakEven() {
var fixedCosts = parseFloat(document.getElementById('fixedCosts').value);
var unitPrice = parseFloat(document.getElementById('unitPrice').value);
var variableCost = parseFloat(document.getElementById('variableCost').value);
var resultDiv = document.getElementById('breakEvenResults');
if (isNaN(fixedCosts) || isNaN(unitPrice) || isNaN(variableCost)) {
alert('Please enter valid numeric values for all fields.');
return;
}
if (unitPrice <= variableCost) {
alert('Price per unit must be greater than variable cost per unit to achieve a break-even point.');
return;
}
var contributionMargin = unitPrice – variableCost;
var breakEvenUnits = Math.ceil(fixedCosts / contributionMargin);
var breakEvenSales = breakEvenUnits * unitPrice;
var marginPercentage = (contributionMargin / unitPrice) * 100;
document.getElementById('unitResult').innerText = breakEvenUnits.toLocaleString() + ' Units';
document.getElementById('salesResult').innerText = '$' + breakEvenSales.toLocaleString(undefined, {minimumFractionDigits: 2, maximumFractionDigits: 2});
document.getElementById('marginResult').innerText = marginPercentage.toFixed(2) + '%';
document.getElementById('summaryText').innerText = 'To cover your monthly fixed costs of $' + fixedCosts.toLocaleString() + ', you must sell at least ' + breakEvenUnits.toLocaleString() + ' units. This generates $' + breakEvenSales.toLocaleString() + ' in total revenue.';
resultDiv.style.display = 'block';
resultDiv.scrollIntoView({ behavior: 'smooth', block: 'nearest' });
}