Find how many units you must sell each month to cover your fixed costs — and what revenue that adds up to.
The break-even point is the sales volume where the business stops losing money and has not yet started making any. Every unit sold leaves a slice of its price behind after paying its own variable cost — that slice is the contribution margin, and the break-even point is simply how many slices it takes to fill the bucket of fixed costs. A shop with R$ 10.000 of fixed costs a month selling a product at R$ 50 that costs R$ 30 to put in the customer's hands earns R$ 20 per unit and needs 500 units, or R$ 25.000 in revenue, to end the month at zero.
The whole calculation depends on splitting costs correctly. Fixed costs are the ones that show up whether you sell nothing or everything: rent, payroll, accounting, software, internet. Variable costs only exist when a sale exists: the product itself, packaging, freight, card fees, commission. Salaries are fixed even though the team works more when sales rise; a delivery fee is variable even if it is small. Get that split wrong and the break-even point moves a long way, which is why it is worth listing your costs once and reusing the two totals every month.
Two readings make this number useful in practice. Selling below break-even tells you exactly how big the gap is — 380 units against 500 means R$ 2.400 of fixed costs uncovered, not a vague bad feeling. And the profit target turns the same formula into a sales goal: add the profit you want to the fixed costs before dividing, and R$ 4.000 of desired profit becomes 700 units instead of 500. The result is rounded up, because half a sale does not pay half a rent. This is a single-product model — with a varied catalogue, use your average contribution margin ratio and read the answer in revenue rather than units. Everything runs in your browser and no figure you type is sent anywhere.
Contribution margin per unit = price − unit variable cost. Break-even units = fixed costs ÷ contribution margin per unit, rounded up. Break-even revenue = units × price. With a profit target: units = (fixed costs + target) ÷ contribution margin per unit.
Divide your monthly fixed costs by the contribution margin of one unit, which is the sale price minus the unit variable cost. With R$ 10.000 of fixed costs and a margin of R$ 20 per unit, the break-even point is 500 units a month.
Fixed costs are paid even if you sell nothing — rent, salaries, software, accounting. Variable costs only happen when a sale happens — the product, packaging, freight, card fees and commission.
Because the variable cost is equal to or higher than the price, so each sale loses money and no volume ever covers the fixed costs. The fix is to raise the price or cut the variable cost, not to sell more.
Not by default — the break-even point is the zero line. Fill in the profit target field and the tool adds it to the fixed costs, showing how many units and how much revenue that goal requires.
Use the average contribution margin ratio of your mix and read the result in revenue rather than in units. The unit answer only makes sense when the price and the variable cost are the same for everything you sell.
No. The calculation runs locally in JavaScript on your device, and nothing you type is uploaded or stored.
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