Break-Even Calculator

Enter your monthly fixed costs, your selling price and your variable cost per unit to see exactly how many units — and how much revenue — you need before anything drops to the bottom line. Part of our free 2025 tax year calculator set for Canadian businesses.

2025 tax year rates All 13 provinces Updates as you type

Your cost structure

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How it works. Every sale contributes its price minus its variable cost toward the bills that arrive whether you sell or not. Break-even is your fixed costs divided by that contribution margin, rounded up to whole units — the point where the month stops costing you money.

Break-even revenue per month

$0

0 units a month at a 0% contribution margin

Variable cost per unit $0 Contribution margin $0
Contribution margin per unit$0
Margin ratio0%
Units to break even0
Break-even revenue$0

An estimate is a starting point. Get your real number.

This calculator uses published rates. Your actual position depends on the credits, deductions and structure behind your numbers.

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How break-even works

Costs come in two kinds: fixed costs like rent, insurance, salaries and software that arrive every month regardless of sales, and variable costs like materials, freight and payment processing that scale with each unit sold. What is left of each sale after its variable cost — the contribution margin — is the only money available to pay the fixed bills, so break-even is simply fixed costs divided by contribution margin per unit. The same arithmetic answers the more useful question of a target profit: units needed for a given profit equal fixed costs plus that profit, divided by the contribution margin — so with a $40 margin, an extra $10,000 of monthly profit is 250 more units, not a mystery.

The number is only as good as the cost split behind it. If your books do not separate fixed from variable spending cleanly, start with our bookkeeping service, and use the markup & margin calculator to make sure the per-unit margin you are typing in here is the one you actually earn.

What this calculator does not cover

It models one product at one price. A business selling several products at different margins needs a weighted-average contribution margin, and a sales mix that shifts toward the low-margin line moves the break-even point without any cost changing. Fixed costs are also stepped in real life — a second lease, another hire or a bigger insurance policy raises the bar as volume grows — and the model assumes you sell everything you produce. Treat the result as a planning floor, and have someone who keeps clean books confirm the inputs before you commit to a price or a lease on the strength of it.

Example: $50,000 fixed, $100 price, $60 variable
MetricValue
Contribution margin $40
Margin ratio 40%
Break-even units 1,250
Break-even revenue $125,000

Rates reviewed for the 2025 tax year by Udit Gupta, Founder and Tax Accountant. Federal and provincial rates change annually, and this tool is an estimate for planning rather than tax advice. Confirm current figures before relying on them for a filing.

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Frequently asked questions

It is the sales level at which total revenue exactly covers total costs — every fixed bill is paid and the profit is zero. Below it each month costs you money; above it, each additional unit contributes its full margin to profit. It can be expressed in units or in revenue, and this calculator shows both.
It is the selling price minus the variable cost of one unit — the part of each sale that is left to cover fixed costs and, once those are covered, to become profit. A $100 product with $60 of variable cost contributes $40, a 40% margin ratio. It is the single most useful number for pricing decisions because it shows what each extra sale is actually worth.
Three levers: raise the price, cut the variable cost per unit, or cut fixed costs. Price is usually the most powerful — on a $100 product with a $40 margin, a 10% price increase lifts the margin by a quarter and drops the break-even volume by a fifth, while a 10% cut in fixed costs only drops it by a tenth. Test the levers in the calculator before testing them on customers.
Add the target profit to your fixed costs and divide by the contribution margin per unit. With $50,000 of fixed costs, a $40 margin and a $10,000 monthly profit goal, you need (50,000 + 10,000) ÷ 40 = 1,500 units — 250 more than break-even. The formula makes revenue goals concrete: every profit target is just a unit count.
Fixed costs — rent, salaries, insurance, software subscriptions — stay the same whether you sell one unit or a thousand. Variable costs — materials, packaging, freight, card fees — rise with every unit sold. Some costs are semi-variable (a phone plan with overages, hourly staff added at peak), so put the fixed portion in fixed costs and the per-unit portion in the variable figure for a truer answer.

What Canadians search about this

Answered plainly. Browse every question in the Canadian tax answers directory.

Sign in to CRA My Account, or use the CRA's mobile app, where the return shows as received, in process or assessed, and the refund amount and payment date appear once it has been assessed. The CRA also runs an automated telephone service giving the same information. A representative you have authorised through Represent a Client can check it for you. If the status has not moved past the published processing time, the return is probably under review.
As the rules stand for the 2025 tax year filed in 2026, the late-filing penalty is 5% of the balance owing plus 1% of that balance for each full month the return is late, to a maximum of 12 months, so 17% at worst. It rises to 10% plus 2% per month for up to 20 months, a 50% maximum, but only where the CRA formally demanded the return and had already charged a late-filing penalty for any of the three preceding tax years. Interest compounds daily.
Not across the board. For 2026 the lowest federal bracket rate is 14%, with 20.5%, 26%, 29% and 33% applying above it, and the federal basic personal amount is $16,452, tapering to $14,829 on net income between $181,440 and $258,482. The capital gains inclusion rate stays at one-half for 2025 and 2026; the 2024 proposal to raise it was never enacted. Brackets and credits are indexed annually, so check the CRA's rates for the year you are filing.
Businesses are rarely exempt from income tax; what changes is the rate and the credits. A Canadian-controlled private corporation can claim the small business deduction, giving a federal rate of 9% on the first $500,000 of active business income for 2026 instead of the 15% general rate. For GST/HST you can stay unregistered as a small supplier while taxable revenue stays under $30,000, and some supplies are exempt outright. Registered charities follow separate rules.
Usually as a capital gain: proceeds less your cost and selling costs, with one-half of the gain included in income for 2025 and 2026. A home that qualifies as your principal residence can be exempt for the years it qualifies, but the sale is still reported on your return. Property bought to resell, or sold within a short holding period, can instead be taxed as fully taxable business income. Depreciation claimed on a rental is recaptured.
Scholarships, fellowships and bursaries are income, but a scholarship exemption usually removes the tax. A student enrolled full time in a qualifying educational program can generally exempt the whole amount received for that program, so nothing is added to taxable income. Part-time students get a narrower exemption tied to tuition and program costs. Amounts that are really payment for work, such as a stipend for research services, do not qualify and stay taxable.
Udit Gupta, founder of Tax Filings Canada

Rates and method reviewed by Udit Gupta

Ex Big 4 — Ernst & Young, Deloitte · International & cross-border tax specialist · CPA Canada (In-Depth Tax Program) · Chartered accountant, ICAI & MIA

Udit Gupta has over 15 years of experience helping corporations and business owners with corporate structuring, corporate tax filing, bookkeeping, payroll, GST/HST, cross-border tax and CRA representation. He is Big 4 trained, at Ernst & Young and Deloitte, and qualified as a chartered accountant in India and again in Malaysia. In 2014 he founded his accounting practice to serve entrepreneurs, startups and non-resident business owners across Canada. View full member bio.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India — member 521458 · Malaysian Institute of Accountants — member CA 44667 · Ex Big 4: Ernst & Young, Deloitte · CPA Canada (In-Depth Tax Program), completed 19 Dec 2023 · In-Depth GST/HST Part I, 12 Jul 2022 · Part II, 5 Jul 2023

Editorial policy. Every page is researched against primary sources — the Income Tax Act, CRA publications and CPA Canada guidance — and every rate or threshold is stated with the tax year it applies to.

Sources. CRA — Businesses · Income Tax Act (Justice Laws Website)

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