---
title: "How to find your restaurant's break-even point | GoSufra"
description: "A clear way to calculate the sales you must hit before the restaurant makes a profit — fixed costs, contribution margin, and what to do when the target is too high."
url: "https://gosufra.com/en/blog/restaurant-break-even/"
language: "en"
source: "https://gosufra.com"
---
# How to find your restaurant's break-even point

A clear way to calculate the sales you must hit before the restaurant makes a profit — fixed costs, contribution margin, and what to do when the target is too high.

2026-08-16 · 8 min read

![Illustration of two lines crossing at a break-even point](https://gosufra.com/blog/restaurant-break-even.svg)

## Key points

- Break-even sales = fixed costs ÷ contribution margin ratio. Below that number you are working for the landlord.
- Contribution margin is what is left after food, packaging and other costs that move with each order.
- A daily break-even is more useful than a monthly one — you know by mid-evening whether the day is saved.
- If the target needs a full house every night, the problem is the cost base, not the marketing.

A busy Saturday is not proof the restaurant works. Proof is knowing the **sales number that covers every fixed bill**, and seeing whether today cleared it.

That number is the break-even point. Most owners feel it. Few can write it on a napkin.

## The definition

```
  break-even sales = fixed costs ÷ contribution margin ratio  
```

**Fixed costs** do not move with the next order: rent, salaried managers, insurance, software, most utilities, loan payments, a base marketing retainer.

**Contribution margin** is what each unit of sales leaves after the costs that *do* move: food, packaging, delivery commission, hourly labour you only roster when you are open, payment fees.

```
  contribution margin ratio = (net sales − variable costs) ÷ net sales  
```

A monthly example:

| Line | Amount |
| --- | --- |
| Net sales (last month) | 900,000 |
| Variable costs (food, packaging, hourly labour, commissions) | 495,000 |
| **Contribution margin** | **405,000** |
| **Contribution margin ratio** | **45%** |
| Fixed costs | 270,000 |
| **Break-even sales** | **270,000 ÷ 0.45 = 600,000** |

Last month you were 300,000 above break-even. That is the profit engine. If next month sales fall to 580,000, you are not “a bit slow”. You are below water.

## Daily is the version you will actually use

```
  daily break-even = monthly break-even ÷ days open  
```

600,000 ÷ 26 open days ≈ **23,100 a day**.

Put that number on the pass, or on the manager’s morning screen. By 8 pm you know whether the day needs a push (a last sitting, a delivery push, a late-night offer) or whether you should stop spending on the problem.

| Day type | How to read it |
| --- | --- |
| Weekday below daily BE | Expected — the weekend must over-contribute |
| Weekend below daily BE | The month is already in trouble |
| Every day below BE | The cost base does not fit the trade |

## Two ways the number lies

1. **Calling everything variable.** If you treat salaried chefs as variable, break-even looks easy and then rent day arrives. If you treat every waiter as fixed, break-even looks impossible and you never open a Tuesday.
2. **Ignoring delivery commission.** A 30% aggregator fee is a variable cost. A month that is 40% delivery has a thinner contribution margin than a month that is 40% dine-in. Recalculate when the mix changes.

## What to do when break-even is too high

You have three levers. Marketing is the slowest.

1. **Raise contribution margin.** Re-price two high-volume dishes, drop a loss-leader, cut packaging, or pull volume off the most expensive aggregator.
2. **Cut fixed cost.** One unused storage room, a software stack you do not open, a salaried role whose work is four hours a day.
3. **Add volume that does not add fixed cost.** Lunch that uses the same kitchen, a takeaway window, catering on the closed day.

Do not hire for a sales target you have not hit. That raises the break-even you are trying to clear.

## A two-week exercise

- **Week 1:** Split last month’s costs into fixed and variable. Be strict. Calculate the ratio and the monthly and daily numbers.

- **Week 2:** Write the daily number on the board. Track actual net sales against it each night. On the two weakest weekdays, change one thing: hours, a section, or the delivery mix.

When sales, recipes, hourly attendance and expenses live in one place — as they do in GoSufra — the contribution margin is not a rebuild in a spreadsheet. The daily target can sit next to today’s sales instead of in a file you open on the first of the month.

The restaurants that last are not the busiest. They are the ones that know, by dinner, whether the day already paid the rent.

- break-even
- fixed costs
- contribution margin
- planning

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