Contractor Break-Even Calculator
Add your monthly fixed overhead, target owner compensation, and profit goal, then divide by the contribution margin left after variable costs. The result is the revenue you must bill each month — and across your planning period — to break even on your own terms.
Contractor Break-Even Calculator
Add your monthly fixed overhead, target owner compensation, and profit goal, then divide by the contribution margin left after variable costs. The result is the revenue you must bill each month — and across your planning period — to break even on your own terms.
Method and assumptions
Figur adds your monthly fixed overhead, target owner pay, and profit goal, then divides the total by the contribution margin left after your variable-cost percentage. The monthly result is multiplied across your planning period.
- Variable costs are modeled as a constant percentage of revenue; real jobs vary in margin.
- Fixed overhead, owner pay, and the profit target are treated as stable monthly amounts across the period.
- Taxes, seasonality, unpaid receivables, and price changes sit outside the model.
- A variable-cost percentage of 100% or more leaves no contribution margin, and the calculator rejects it instead of showing an impossible number.
This tool is a business-planning guide, not accounting, tax, or financial advice. Review your break-even numbers with your accountant before setting prices.
Sources and references
No external data source is required: the break-even uses only the overhead, targets, and percentages you enter.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as a variable cost?
Costs that rise with each job: materials, subcontractors, field labor, equipment rental, and job-site supplies. Rent, insurance, office staff, and software stay in fixed overhead because you pay them with or without work.
Why include owner pay and profit in break-even?
A business that only covers overhead pays its owner nothing. Building your own compensation and a profit target into the break-even keeps 'busy but broke' pricing from looking like success.