Break-even calculator
What monthly sales does this location actually need to cover its costs?
Enter fixed costs and prime cost percentage to see the sales figure a location needs to break even this month, per operating day, and how much cushion current sales give it above that line.
One location, one month
Why this number matters
Break-even is the line prime cost moves against
Prime cost tells you the share of sales going to food and labour. Break-even tells you the sales figure that share needs to clear before fixed costs — rent, insurance, salaried overhead — are covered at all. A location can improve its prime cost percentage and still sit below break-even if fixed costs are high enough, which is why the two numbers are worth checking together, not one in isolation.
Questions
What operators ask about this
What is a restaurant break-even point?
The monthly sales figure at which a location's contribution margin — sales minus its variable costs, mainly food and labour — exactly covers its fixed costs, such as rent, insurance and salaried overhead. Below that figure the store is losing money; above it, every additional dollar of sales contributes to profit.
What counts as a fixed cost versus a variable cost here?
Fixed costs are the ones that don't move with sales volume in the short term — rent, insurance, licensing, salaried management. Variable costs move with sales — food cost and most hourly labour. This calculator uses your prime cost percentage as a simplified stand-in for the variable cost rate, since food cost is fully variable and most restaurant labour tracks sales closely enough to treat the same way for a quick estimate.
Is this the same number Nexora tracks for a live location?
This calculator gives a quick, single-period estimate from numbers you type in. Nexora tracks the equivalent figures — prime cost, fixed overhead and sales — daily and by store, reconciled from your actual POS, payroll and vendor data rather than a manual estimate.
Ready when you are
Track break-even live, by store
Twenty minutes, screen shared. We connect one of your locations live and show its own sales against its own break-even line.