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Break-Even Calculator
Enter your spend per cover and variable cost. The sheet reads your fixed costs and returns break-even revenue, covers per month, and covers per day.
Restaurant Break-Even Calculator for Indian Restaurants
Know the one number every restaurant should: how many covers a day you need just to break even. Enter your fixed costs, your average spend per cover, and your variable cost, and the sheet returns your break-even revenue, covers per day, and margin of safety. Updated July 2026.
- Your break-even in covers per day, not just a rupee figure
- Fixed costs entered once, they flow into the calculator
- Margin of safety: how far above the line you actually are
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Petpooja presents
Break-Even Calculator
For Indian Restaurants
4
Sheets · Excel calculator
FY 2026-27
What's Inside
Four sheets, one number that matters
02
Fixed Costs
List rent, salaries, electricity, licences, and the rest once. The total flows into the calculator, so you never retype it.
03
Margin of Safety
Enter your current revenue and see how far above break-even you sit, and your profit at that level. The number that tells you how safe a slow month is.
04
How to Read It
What break-even really means, and the only three levers that move it: fixed costs, spend per cover, and variable cost share.
Do all of this automatically with Petpooja POSS
The calculator needs the numbers off a spreadsheet. Petpooja POSS tracks your live sales, covers, and costs, so you can see where you stand against break-even every day, not once a quarter.
Explore Petpooja POSS
Why This Matters
Most Owners Cannot Name Their Break-Even
Ask a restaurant owner what their monthly sales are and they will tell you at once. Ask how many covers a day they need just to break even, and most go quiet. That second number is the one that decides whether the first is enough.
Break-even is where profit is exactly zero: sales have covered every fixed cost and every variable cost, and not a rupee more. Below it you are losing money however busy you look; above it, every extra cover is profit. Without the number, a packed Saturday and a quiet Tuesday feel the same, when one is carrying the other.
The maths is simple once the pieces are in place. Your spend per cover, minus the variable cost of serving it, is what each guest contributes toward fixed costs. Divide your fixed costs by that contribution and you have the covers you need. This sheet does it, and turns it into a daily target.
The real value is the margin of safety. Knowing you break even at 36 covers a day is useful; knowing you currently do 44, so a bad week still leaves you in profit, is what lets you sleep. A thin margin is a warning long before the loss shows up in your bank.
Re-run it whenever a fixed cost moves, a rent hike or a new hire pushes break-even up, and check it against your P&L.
Sample Preview
A worked example, 36 covers a day
Here's a preview of what you'll get inside:
Fixed costs: ₹3,00,000 a month, rent, salaries, electricity, licences, and the rest, entered once on the Fixed Costs sheet
The margins: ₹450 average spend per cover, 38% variable cost, so a 62% contribution margin, ₹279 per cover
Break-even: ₹4,83,871 in revenue a month, which is 1,075 covers, or 36 covers a day across 30 days
Margin of safety: at ₹6,00,000 current revenue, that is 19.4% above break-even and about ₹72,000 monthly profit
The takeaway: the 36th guest each day is where the losses stop; every cover after that is profit
... plus the itemised fixed-cost sheet and the how-to-read guide, across 4 sheets.
Key Stats
The number every owner should know
Covers/day
Break-even expressed the way you actually run the floor. If it says 36, the 36th guest of the day is where the losses stop and the profit starts. A rupee figure alone never feels that real.
The headline output3 levers
You lower break-even in only three ways: cut fixed costs, raise the spend per cover, or shrink the variable cost share. Anything else is noise. The sheet shows how each one moves the number.
What actually moves break-evenSafety margin
How far your current revenue sits above the line. A thin margin means a slow week tips you into a loss; a wide one means you can absorb a bad month. Watch it more than raw profit.
The number to watch
Common Mistakes
6 Break-Even Mistakes Restaurants Make
01
Never calculating it at all
The most common one. If you cannot name your break-even, you cannot know whether a busy month was actually a profitable one. It is one afternoon of arithmetic that changes how you read every day.
02
Mixing variable costs into fixed
Food cost moves with sales, so it is variable, not fixed. Put it in the fixed pile and your break-even is badly overstated. Only truly fixed costs, like rent, belong in fixed.
03
Forgetting delivery commission
Aggregator commission is a variable cost on every delivery order. Leave it out of your variable percentage and your contribution margin, and your break-even, are both wrong.
04
Treating break-even as the target
It is the floor, not the goal. Aiming for break-even means aiming for zero profit. The number tells you where survival is; your target sits well above it.
05
Ignoring the margin of safety
Two restaurants can both be in profit, but one is 5% above break-even and one is 30%. The first is one bad week from a loss. Raw profit hides that; the safety margin shows it.
06
Calculating it once and forgetting
A rent hike, a new salary, or a commission increase all move break-even. Re-run it whenever your costs change, not just when you open. Track it against your live daily sales.
Comparison
Knowing vs Guessing
| Situation | Guessing | Knowing Your Break-Even |
|---|---|---|
| Your break-even | A vague feeling | A number, in covers per day |
| A slow week | Worry, no context | Measured against your safety margin |
| A rent hike | Absorbed, unnoticed | You see the new break-even at once |
| Pricing a change | Gut feel | You see how it moves the line |
| A quiet Tuesday | Feels the same as Saturday | You know if it cleared the floor |
| Cost | Free, but you fly blind | Free, and you can see |
Find your break-even number
Download the free calculator, enter your costs and margins, and turn a vague worry into a daily target you can actually hit.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What exactly is break-even for a restaurant?
It is the level of sales where your profit is exactly zero: your revenue has covered all your fixed costs, like rent and salaries, and all your variable costs, like food and delivery commission, with nothing left over. Below it you lose money, above it you make it. This calculator expresses it two ways, the revenue you need per month and, more usefully, the number of covers you need per day, so it becomes a target you can actually manage against on the floor.
What counts as a fixed cost versus a variable cost?
A fixed cost stays the same whether you serve 10 covers or 200: rent, fixed salaries, licences, insurance, most of your electricity. A variable cost moves with each sale: ingredients, packaging, and aggregator commission. The split matters because break-even divides your fixed costs by the contribution left after variable costs, so putting a variable cost in the fixed pile, or vice versa, throws the whole number off. When a cost is partly both, put only the fixed portion on the Fixed Costs sheet.
How do I work out my variable cost percentage?
Add up the costs that scale with sales, food and ingredients, packaging, and delivery commission, and express them as a percentage of your sales. For many Indian restaurants this lands somewhere around a third to two-fifths, but it varies a lot by format, so use your own figures. A food cost calculator helps you pin down the biggest part of it, and there are proven ways to cut it.
What is a good margin of safety?
There is no single right number, but more is safer. A margin of safety of, say, 20% means your current revenue could fall by a fifth before you hit break-even, which gives you room to absorb a slow month. A margin in low single digits is a warning: one bad week and you are in a loss. Watch it over time more than you watch raw profit, because it tells you how fragile a good month really is.
How can I lower my break-even?
Only three levers move it. Cut fixed costs (renegotiate rent, right-size fixed staff). Raise your average spend per cover (menu design, upselling, combos). Or cut your variable cost share (better purchasing, less wastage, a smarter delivery mix). A restaurant POS helps with all three at once by tightening inventory, surfacing your best-selling high-margin items, and giving you the live numbers to act on.
About Petpooja
Petpooja is India's leading SME business software suite, trusted by 1,50,000+ businesses across restaurants, retail, healthcare, manufacturing, and more. From billing and payroll to task management and procurement Petpooja helps Indian businesses run better, every day.
See where you stand every day
Petpooja POSS tracks your live sales, covers, and costs, so you are not working out break-even from a spreadsheet once a quarter, you can see how today measured up against the line.
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