Break-even calculator for online sellers
Enter what your shop costs to run each month and what one sale earns after product costs and fees. You get the number of sales you need to cover your costs, the sales needed for a profit goal, and what a 10% price rise would change.
Edit fee rates
Get the Seller Profit Sheet, $14 one-time. Launch price: 50% off with FIRST10, first 10 buyers.
Fee defaults are Etsy US as of October 2026 (6.5% transaction + 3% processing on the price, $0.25 processing + $0.20 listing per sale). For Shopify Basic use 2.9% and $0.30; for eBay about 13.6% and $0.40. Shipping you charge separately is left out; if you offer free shipping, put the label in variable cost. Units are rounded up to whole sales.
That's one product. Which of yours lose money?
The Seller Profit Sheet does this math for every product at once. Paste your Etsy or Shopify sales export (or type in Amazon and eBay sales) and it shows net profit per product after fees, labels, discounts, returns and ad spend, with a red LOSING MONEY flag on anything underwater. Excel and Google Sheets, one-time $14, no subscription.
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How break-even works
Every sale leaves some money after paying for the product itself and the fees on that sale. That leftover is the contribution per unit. Your fixed costs, the ones you pay whether you sell anything or not, have to be covered by those contributions. Break-even is the point where they are.
Break-even units = fixed costs / (price - variable cost - fees per unit)
Fixed costs for an online seller are things like a Shopify plan, Etsy Plus, email software, design apps, a workspace or a monthly ad budget you have committed to. Variable costs rise with each sale: materials, packaging, the shipping label if you offer free shipping, and marketplace fees.
Worked example
You sell a $24 item that costs $8 to make and ship. Etsy's US fees on it are 9.5% of $24 ($2.28) plus $0.45, so $2.73. Each sale contributes $24 - $8 - $2.73 = $13.27 toward fixed costs.
With $300 a month of fixed costs, you need 300 / 13.27 = 22.6 sales, so 23 sales and $552.00 of revenue to break even. To make $1,000 on top, you need (300 + 1,000) / 13.27 = 97.97, so 98 sales, or $2,352.00 of revenue.
What a 10% price rise does
Raise the price to $26.40 and the contribution goes to $15.44, because nearly all of the extra $2.40 is profit (only the 9.5% fee comes out of it). Break-even falls to 20 sales and the $1,000 goal falls to 85 sales. That is 13 fewer sales for the same profit, which is why a small price change often matters more than a big push for volume. The price increase calculator shows how many sales you could lose before a rise stops paying off.
A whole-shop break-even hides which products carry the rest. For a per-product view you need your full sales export with each item's own cost and fees.
Questions
How do I calculate break-even for a small business?
Add up your monthly fixed costs and divide by what each sale leaves after its own costs and fees. $300 of fixed costs and $13.27 per sale gives 22.6, so 23 sales a month.
Should I include marketplace fees in break-even?
Yes, as a variable cost per unit. Percentage fees grow with the price, so a $24 Etsy sale at 9.5% plus $0.45 carries $2.73 of fees. Monthly plan fees like Shopify or Etsy Plus go in fixed costs instead.
Should I pay myself before break-even?
If you want the business to pay you, put your target pay in the profit goal, or add a salary to fixed costs. Break-even with no pay only means the shop isn't losing cash.
Does raising prices lower break-even?
Yes, often a lot. In the example a 10% rise from $24 to $26.40 lifts contribution from $13.27 to $15.44 and cuts break-even from 23 sales to 20.