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Restaurant break-even calculator

How much you need to sell each month, week and day, and how many guests that is, so you know what a day has to bring in just to cover the bills.

You'll need: A typical month's sales, the bills that stay the same, and the costs that rise with every sale.

By · Updated · How it's worked out

Free calculator

Break-even sales

Works in any currency. Nothing you type is sent to us.

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, both without tax and tips), to-go packaging, and any percentage rent, royalties or ad fund fees. Leave out anything already in your food and drink invoices.

Does your hourly staff time go up and down with sales?

Yes if you add and cut shifts as it gets busy or quiet. No if about the same team works every shift: then hourly pay is a bill that stays the same. Not sure shows break-even both ways, since the answer moves it.

A month of rent and utilities, salaries with your payroll taxes and benefits on them, insurance, software and marketing. Loan and lease payments count in full; depreciation is left out. Yearly bills ÷ 12. Your own pay has its own box.

What you take from the restaurant each month, if it isn't on payroll. Break-even is shown with it and without it; leave it blank and break-even assumes you work for free.

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.

That includes paying yourself 5,000 a month. Without your pay, you'd break even at 57,067⁠–⁠70,240 a month, or 49⁠–⁠61 guests a day.

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 and your own pay, 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.

If your prices were 10% lower or higher

If guests kept coming at the same rate and ordered the same plates: the same food and drink cost a plate, the same hourly pay and the same bills, with card fees, app commissions and the other costs that rise with every sale moving with the price. An illustration, not advice: a price change can change how many guests come.

Prices 10% lower
82,960–84,706 a month79–81 guests a day at 40.50 each
Prices as now
70,400–78,240 a month61–67 guests a day at 45.00 each
Prices 10% higher
61,854–74,761 a month49–59 guests a day at 49.50 each
How we worked it out
Bills that stay the same, your pay in: 21,400 + 5,000
26,400
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
Break-even without your pay, hourly pay rising with sales: 21,400 × 90,000 ÷ (90,000 − 56,250)
57,067
Break-even without your pay, hourly pay as a fixed bill: 43,900 × 90,000 ÷ (90,000 − 33,750)
70,240
Guests a day without your pay: a day's sales ÷ 45.00
49⁠–⁠61
Left over after every bill: 90,000 − 56,250 − 26,400
7,350
Food and drink share, prices 10% lower: 32% ÷ 0.9
35.6%
Break-even, prices 10% lower, hourly pay rising with sales: 26,400 × 81,000 ÷ (81,000 − (28,800 + 22,500 + 4,950 × 0.9))
84,706
Break-even, prices 10% lower, hourly pay as a fixed bill: 48,900 × 81,000 ÷ (81,000 − (28,800 + 4,950 × 0.9))
82,960
Guests a day, prices 10% lower: a day's sales ÷ 40.50
79⁠–⁠81
Food and drink share, prices 10% higher: 32% ÷ 1.1
29.1%
Break-even, prices 10% higher, hourly pay rising with sales: 26,400 × 99,000 ÷ (99,000 − (28,800 + 22,500 + 4,950 × 1.1))
61,854
Break-even, prices 10% higher, hourly pay as a fixed bill: 48,900 × 99,000 ÷ (99,000 − (28,800 + 4,950 × 1.1))
74,761
Guests a day, prices 10% higher: a day's sales ÷ 49.50
49⁠–⁠59

break-even.csv: what you typed, each break-even figure with and without your pay, the what-if row on prices and how each is worked out. It opens in Google Sheets, Excel or Numbers, and it's made on this device.

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.

Break-even formula
Break-even sales = monthly bills ÷ (1 − costs that rise with sales ÷ net sales)

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. The calculator shows what prices 10% lower or higher would do if guests kept coming at the same rate: an illustration, not a forecast. If you're busy and still short, see why a busy restaurant can still lose money.

To turn your break-even sales into guests on a slow night, see how many covers a night you need to break even.

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. Put what you need to take home each month in its own box, unless it's already on payroll, and the calculator shows break-even with your pay and without it. 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.

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