Storefront Fixed-Cost Break-Even Units & Revenue Calculator
Find how many orders and how much revenue you need each month to cover your fixed overhead.
How the Business Break-Even Calculator Works
Every online store has costs that arrive whether or not anyone buys: software, salaries, rent, and agency retainers. Your job each month is to sell enough that the money left from each order, after its own costs, covers that fixed overhead. The point where it does is your break-even.
Enter your monthly fixed overhead, average selling price, product cost, shipping and fulfillment per order, payment fee percentage, and the ad cost to win each order. The calculator finds your contribution margin per order and its ratio, then divides your overhead by it to show the orders and revenue you need each month. The card is red when no volume can break even, blue when the contribution ratio is under 20%, and green when it is 20% or more.
Key Formulas Behind This Tool
- Payment Fee per Order: Selling Price x Payment Fee %
- Contribution Margin per Order: Selling Price - COGS - Shipping and Fulfillment - Payment Fee - Ad CPA
- Contribution Margin Ratio (%): (Contribution Margin per Order / Selling Price) x 100
- Monthly Break-Even Orders: Monthly Fixed Overhead / Contribution Margin per Order, rounded up
- Monthly Break-Even Revenue: Break-Even Orders x Average Selling Price
- Break-Even Orders per Day: Break-Even Orders / 30
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What is a break-even point?
It is the number of orders (or the amount of revenue) at which your total contribution from sales exactly covers your fixed costs, so profit is zero. Every order beyond that point adds to profit, and every order short of it leaves a loss.
What is contribution margin?
It is the money each order contributes toward fixed costs after all the costs that change with each order: product cost, shipping and fulfillment, payment fees, and ad cost. It is not the same as net profit, because fixed overhead has not been subtracted yet.
What counts as fixed monthly overhead?
Costs you pay whether you sell one order or a thousand: software subscriptions, payroll, rent, agency retainers, insurance, and similar items. Costs that grow with each order belong in the per-order fields instead.
Why is ad cost per order treated as variable?
If you pay for ads in proportion to the orders you get, the cost per order stays roughly the same as you grow, so it behaves like a variable cost. A fixed monthly ad retainer or management fee belongs in overhead.
What if the tool says break-even is not possible?
It means each order loses money before overhead even counts. Raise your price, lower product, shipping, or ad costs, or cut payment fees until each order contributes something. More volume cannot fix a negative contribution margin.