Essentials Break-Even Analysis Spreadsheet Template for Google Sheets & Excel

The price at the top, then both sides of the cost base itemised rather than summarised. Named fixed lines cover rent, wages, insurance, utilities, marketing, professional services, software and anything else; five variable lines cover materials, direct labour, shipping, commission and the rest. Itemising matters because the commonest error in a break-even calculation is a fixed cost left out, and a list of named lines makes an omission visible in a way a single total never does. The results follow: the contribution margin per unit and as a ratio, then the break-even point in units and revenue, monthly and annually. Every one of those is checked first - if the price does not exceed the variable cost there is no break-even point at all, and the sheet says so rather than returning an error or a negative figure that looks like an answer. Two blocks beneath go past break-even, which is where the sheet earns its tier. The current performance block takes what you actually sell and reports how far above or below the break-even point that is, the safety margin it represents, and the profit or loss it produces. The target profit block runs the calculation the other way: name a profit you want, and it returns the units and the revenue required to reach it. Break-even is a floor rather than a goal, and this is the part that treats it that way. Two more blocks run the question backwards. The what-if block puts your price down twenty and ten per cent, leaves it where it is, and puts it up ten and twenty, then reports the contribution margin, the break-even units and the break-even revenue at each - so the cost of a discount is a figure rather than a feeling. The next block asks the opposite question: name how many units you expect to sell, and it returns the price per unit that would cover everything at that volume. The sheet closes with two blocks on time and volume rather than price. Time to break even turns the break-even point into a day of a typical month, given what you currently sell, and reports the profit days that leaves in the rest of it - guarded to N/A where current sales never reach break-even at all. Volume analysis lays out revenue, total cost, profit or loss and margin at five points around the break-even level, from a quarter of it up to one and a half times it, so the shape of the result is visible on either side of the break-even point rather than only at it.

Six figures. The top row is the contribution margin, the units per month needed to cover costs, and the revenue that represents. The row beneath is the margin as a ratio, the safety margin at what you actually sell, and the units a target profit would take - the three that say where you stand rather than where the floor is. Two charts sit alongside: a line chart running revenue against total cost as volume rises, and a pie splitting fixed from variable costs at the break-even point.