You may have an idea that spurs you to open a business or launch a new product on little more than a hope and a dream. Or, you might just be thinking about expanding a product offering or hiring additional personnel. It’s wise, however, to limit your risk before jumping in. A break-even analysis will reveal the point at which your endeavor will become profitable—so you can know where you’re headed before you invest your money and time.

What Is Break-Even Analysis?

A break-even analysis is a financial calculation that weighs the costs of a new business, service or product against the unit sell price to determine the point at which you will break even. In other words, it reveals the point at which you will have sold enough units to cover all of your costs. At that point, you will have neither lost money nor made a profit.

When to Use a Break-Even Analysis:

Expanding a business

Break-even points (BEP) will help business owners/CFOs get a reality check on how long it will take an investment to become profitable. For example, calculating or modeling the minimum sales required to cover the costs of a new location or entering a new market.

Lowering pricing

Sometimes businesses need to lower their pricing strategy to beat competitors in a specific market segment or product. So, when lowering pricing, businesses need to figure out how many more units they need to sell to offset or make up a price decrease.

Narrowing down business scenarios

When making changes to the business, there are various scenarios and what-ifs on the table that complicate decisions about which scenario to go with. BEP will help business leaders reduce decision-making to a series of yes or no questions.