Break-even calculator
Free, no sign-up, runs in your browser.
Break-even is the floor under every pricing decision: the price at which the sale costs you nothing and earns you nothing. Knowing it is what lets you judge a discount, answer a price war, or decide whether clearing dead stock is better than paying to store it. It is not simply cost plus fees, because the percentage fee shrinks as the price falls.
The formula
Break-even price = (fixed fees + total costs) ÷ (1 − percentage fee rate). The denominator is the share of each dollar you actually keep.
A worked example
A $29.99 product that lands at $8.00, sold on Amazon FBA in Home & Kitchen, 10×6×3 inches and 20 ounces packed:
| Revenue kept | $29.99 |
|---|---|
| Total fees | $10.35 |
| Total costs | $10.00 |
| Profit per unit | $9.64 |
| Margin | 32.14% |
| Markup | 96.4% |
| ROI | 96.4% |
What to watch
- Below break-even every extra sale makes the loss bigger. Volume never fixes a negative unit.
- Break-even units is a different question: how many sales cover a fixed monthly subscription, given what each one earns.
- Storage keeps running while stock does not sell, so the break-even on aged inventory rises every month you hold it.
- A clearance below break-even can still be right if the alternative is long-term storage fees or disposal — compare the two, do not assume.
The trap
Treating break-even as cost plus fees. That overstates it, because a lower price also means a lower percentage fee; the division handles both at once.
Questions
How many units do I need to sell to break even?
Divide your fixed monthly costs by the profit on one unit. The calculator does this with the subscription excluded from the per-unit figure first, otherwise the answer would depend on the volume you are solving for.
Should I ever sell below break-even?
Sometimes. Clearing stock that would otherwise accrue long-term storage fees, or that is about to be removed, can lose less than holding it. Work out both numbers rather than following the instinct not to sell at a loss.
Does break-even include my subscription?
The break-even price does not, because a subscription is not caused by the sale. The break-even units figure is exactly the one that does.
Rates on this page are the published schedules as of 2025-01-15 and are applied by the same code the calculator runs. Marketplaces reprice — confirm against your own seller dashboard before setting a price.