What this tool does
Given fixed monthly costs (rent, salaries, software, insurance), your average ticket size, and your gross margin %, this calculator returns how many tickets per month you need to break even — and the revenue that implies.
Why breakeven is the most important number you should know
Most contractors track revenue and profit but ignore breakeven. Knowing your breakeven point tells you: how aggressively you can discount, when you can hire, how vulnerable you are to a slow month, and how much capacity reserve you need before adding fixed costs.
How the math works
Contribution per ticket = average ticket × gross margin %. That is the dollars each ticket contributes toward covering fixed costs.
Breakeven tickets = fixed monthly costs ÷ contribution per ticket.
Breakeven revenue = breakeven tickets × average ticket.
Using this in practice
Run it once a quarter. When fixed costs change (you hire someone, you sign a new lease), recompute immediately. If your breakeven jumps and your booked-jobs pipeline did not, that is the moment to act — not three months later when cash gets tight.
