Break-even and product pricing
How many do you have to sell before you have made anything, and what should each one cost?
This one is for anything sold by the unit — a service package, a product on a marketplace, a printable, a bundle. The platform fee is a box you fill in, because every marketplace charges something different and changes it without asking.
Your numbers
Three prices to compare
| Scenario | Price | Fee | Contribution | Margin | Break-even / month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | |||||
| B | |||||
| C |
Runs in your browser. Nothing you type is stored or sent anywhere.
Worked example
Filled in above: $500 of fixed costs a month, $8 to make or deliver each unit, a 10% platform fee, and a 30% target margin.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Price: $8 ÷ (1 − 0.10 − 0.30) | $13.33 |
| Contribution: $13.33 × 0.9 − $8 | $4.00 |
| Break-even: $500 ÷ $4.00 | 125 units |
The scenarios show what changes if you pick a rounder number: at $12 you need 179 sales a month to cover fixed costs; at $15, 91; at $20, 50. Whether $20 is sellable is a question the calculator cannot answer — but it can tell you that $12 needs three and a half times the customers of $20.
How it's calculated
- Net per unit = price × (1 − fee %). The platform takes its cut off the top.
- Contribution = net per unit − variable cost. This is what each sale leaves towards fixed costs.
- Break-even units = fixed costs ÷ contribution, rounded up — you cannot sell 178.6 of something.
- Price for a target margin = variable cost ÷ (1 − fee % − margin %). If fee plus margin reaches 100% there is no such price, and the calculator says so.
"Never" in the table means that price does not cover the unit cost after fees, so no volume gets you to break-even.
Get the full workbook
Cleaning Business Starter Kit (all 4) $19
If the thing you sell by the unit is cleaning, the Starter Kit is the whole back office: pricing, bookkeeping, client tracker and schedule in one connected workbook. All four tools cost $47 separately.
Same file in both stores. Pay once, own it, works in Google Sheets and Excel.
The four tools are also sold one at a time in the GoodWorkBooksCo shop on Etsy and on Gumroad.
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