Restaurant break-even calculator
How much you need to sell each month, week and day, and how many guests that is.
You'll need: A typical month's sales, the bills that stay the same, and the costs that rise with every sale.
Free calculator
Break-even sales
Works in any currency. Nothing you type leaves this page.
Example numbers. Replace them with yours.
Your POS sales summary for one typical month, not a holiday rush or a one-off: net sales, before tax and tips. Use that same month for every number here.
That month's supplier invoices for food and drink, added up by delivery date.
Your payroll report: hourly wages, plus your payroll taxes and benefits on them as the employer. Leave tips out. Paid every two weeks? Take one pay run × 26 ÷ 12, since some months hold three.
Card fees, delivery app commissions (app sales minus payouts), to-go packaging, and any percentage rent, royalties or ad fund fees. Leave out anything already in your food and drink invoices.
A month of rent and utilities, salaries with your payroll taxes and benefits on them, insurance, software, marketing, and your own pay if it isn't on payroll (leave it out and break-even assumes you work for free). Loan and lease payments count in full; depreciation is left out. Yearly bills ÷ 12.
Your POS sales summary: the average check, or net sales ÷ guests or orders. It turns sales into guests.
Add more detail
A whole number from 1 to 7. It turns the month into sales a day open.
Skip both stock counts if your stock stayed about the same: purchases are then a fair stand-in.
With both, food and drink used = start + purchases − end.
After every bill, before income tax. Shows the sales a month that would take.
With the example numbers
You break even at 70,400–78,240 a month.
70,400 if your hourly staff time goes up and down with sales, 78,240 if it stays about the same. Your real schedule sits somewhere in between.
- A week
- 16,247–18,056
- A day open
- 2,708–3,010over 6 days a week
- Guests a day
- 61–67at 45.00 each
At 90,000 a month you're 11,760–19,600 above break-even (13.1–21.8% of your sales): your cushion before you start losing money. You had about 7,350 left over after every bill, before income tax.
The costs that rise with sales take 62.5% of every sale with your hourly pay counted in, or 37.5% with it counted as a bill that stays the same. What's left of each sale pays those bills.
What moves it
At these sales, every point of cost you save (1% of sales) leaves about 900 more a month. A point off food and drink, card fees, app commissions or packaging lowers break-even by about 1,232–1,829 a month; a point off salaries or fixed shifts lowers it by about 1,440–2,400. Each 1,000 a month off your bills that stay the same lowers it by about 1,600–2,667.
This assumes your prices, menu mix and cost shares stay as they were that month.
How we worked it out
- Costs that rise with sales, hourly pay in: 28,800 + 22,500 + 4,950
- 56,250
- Break-even a month, hourly pay rising with sales: 26,400 × 90,000 ÷ (90,000 − 56,250)
- 70,400
- Costs that rise with sales, hourly pay out: 28,800 + 4,950
- 33,750
- Bills that stay the same, hourly pay in: 26,400 + 22,500
- 48,900
- Break-even a month, hourly pay as a fixed bill: 48,900 × 90,000 ÷ (90,000 − 33,750)
- 78,240
- A week: break-even × 12 ÷ 52
- 16,247–18,056
- Days open a month: 6 × 52 ÷ 12
- 26
- A day open: break-even ÷ 26
- 2,708–3,010
- Guests a day: a day's sales ÷ 45.00
- 61–67
- Left over after every bill: 90,000 − 56,250 − 26,400
- 7,350
How break-even works
Some costs rise with every sale: food and drink, card fees, delivery app commissions, packaging. Others stay the same however busy you are: rent, insurance, salaries, loan payments. What's left of each sale after the first kind is what pays the second. Accountants call that share the contribution margin.
Use one typical month, the same month for sales and costs.
Say the costs that rise with sales take 62.5% of every sale. Then 37.5 of every 100 you sell is left to pay the monthly bills, and bills of 26,400 need 26,400 ÷ 0.375 = 70,400 in sales a month. Below that you lose money. Above it, every sale adds to what's left over after every bill.
Two things move break-even. Keep more of each sale, through prices, portions or what the apps take, and you need fewer sales to pay the bills. Cut the monthly bills and you need fewer still. If you're busy and still short, see why a busy restaurant can still lose money.
Common questions
Is hourly staff a cost that rises with sales?
Only if you add and cut shifts as sales go up and down. If about the same team works every shift, busy or quiet, hourly pay behaves like a monthly bill. Not sure? The calculator shows break-even both ways, as a range.
Should my own pay count as a monthly bill?
Yes. Add what you need to take home each month, unless it's already on payroll. Leave it out and break-even assumes you work for free.
Which month should I use?
A typical one, not a holiday month or one with a one-off bill. If your months swing a lot, average the last three. If you pay staff every two weeks, some months hold three pay runs: count one pay run × 26 ÷ 12 instead.
What if no amount of sales breaks even?
That happens when the costs that rise with sales take all of each sale or more. Selling more then loses more, so prices or those costs have to change first.