This calculator is doing one simple but important thing for you as a business owner:
it’s showing exactly where your business stops losing money and starts making it.
What “break-even” actually means
Break-even is the point where:
Total revenue = total costs. No profit, no loss.
Below that point, every month you’re quietly bleeding cash.
Above it, every extra sale drops real profit to the bottom line.
The calculator on the left lets you plug in:
- Fixed expenses (rent, salaries, software, etc.)
- Variable expenses (costs that rise with each sale)
- Total revenue and average sale size
From that it works out:
- Your gross profit margin
- Your break-even revenue
- The number of transactions you need just to cover your costs
In the example, with $5,000 fixed and a 40% margin, you need $12,500 in revenue or 10 average transactions just to break even.
How to read the chart
Look at the chart on the right side:
- The horizontal axis is Production (Units) – how many jobs, projects, or units you sell.
- The vertical axis is $ – your dollars of revenue and cost.
There are three key lines/points:
- Revenue line (blue)
- Starts at zero and climbs as you sell more.
- The steeper it is, the more you earn per unit.
- Cost line (brown)
- Starts above zero at point B – that’s your fixed costs (what you pay even if you sell nothing).
- Then it rises as production increases, because you’re adding variable costs with each unit.
- Break-Even Point (P)
- Where the revenue line crosses the cost line.
- Drop straight down to the X-axis (point Q) and you get the break-even volume – the number of units/transactions you must sell.
- To the left of that vertical line, the area is marked Loss.
- To the right, it’s Profit.
Page 3 reinforces that total cost is made up of fixed costs at the bottom plus variable costs on top as units increase.
How to use this in your business
As an Empower user, here’s what to do with it:
- Plug in your own numbers to the calculator: real monthly expenses, real average sale.
- Note the break-even revenue and number of transactions.
- Look back at your last few months:
- If you’re often below that line, you’re funding the business out of savings, debt, or personal sacrifice.
- If you’re just above it, you’re technically profitable but not by much—you’re one bad month away from trouble.
- If you’re comfortably past it, you can start planning more aggressively: price moves, hiring, or growth investments.
Example scenarios:
- You might decide, “I need 15 projects a month to break even, but I’ve been averaging 11–12.” That’s a marketing/sales problem.
- Or you see, “If I trim $1,000 of fixed costs or raise my average price by 10%, my break-even drops by several units,” which buys you breathing room.
Bottom line:
This chart is the visual reality check behind your numbers. Once you know your true break-even point, every sales target, pricing decision, and cost decision becomes a lot sharper—and you stop guessing whether the business is actually working.