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Contribution: {{ resultsReady ? formatMoney(computation.values.contribution) + ' / cover' : '—' }} Open days: {{ resultsReady ? computation.normalizedInputs.open_days : '—' }}
Use one currency throughout. Include rent, fixed payroll and monthly overhead.
Net sales per cover, excluding pass-through sales tax and tips.
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Include all volume-linked costs, such as food, variable labor and card fees. Must be below 100%.
Average check minus all variable costs per guest. Must be positive and no greater than the check.
Actual trading days in this month, from 1 to 31.
For example, 2 for lunch and dinner. Targets assume even volume across services.
Your forecast average number of guests; use 0 to model no sales.
Optional profit above modeled costs. Leave 0 to plan only for break-even.
Operating brief

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Calculation method
Q=(F+P)/C

Q: exact monthly covers · F: fixed costs · P: profit target · C: contribution per cover

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Use the targets to compare realistic guest demand with your staffing and seating capacity. A negative safety margin means expected sales fall below break-even. A cover means one guest.

Planning estimate with a constant average check, cost mix and fixed-cost level. All money uses your input currency; no conversion is applied. This is operating profit, not cash flow or after-tax income. Debt principal, capital spending, tax and staffing step-changes are not modeled.

Method: SBA contribution-margin analysis, checked 9 September 2026. Target-profit extension follows the same profit identity.

The chart renderer is unavailable. The plan and ledger still contain the operating values.

Signal Value Unit Meaning Copy
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Filling tables does not by itself show that a restaurant is covering its monthly costs. Part of every guest’s spending pays for ingredients, volume-linked labor and fees. Only the remainder is available for rent, fixed payroll and operating profit.

A cover means one guest, not one table, booking or bill. Four guests sharing a bill count as four covers. Average check per cover therefore means average net sales per guest. The amount left from that check after all variable costs is the contribution per cover. Operating break-even occurs when the month’s total contribution covers its fixed costs, leaving neither a modeled profit nor a loss.

Separating costs by how they respond to guest volume matters more than their accounting label. Payroll, for example, may contain both a fixed monthly commitment and an amount that increases with trading.

Cost behavior Treatment in a monthly restaurant plan
Fixed within the scenario Include rent, fixed payroll and overhead that remain unchanged at the guest volumes being considered.
Variable with sales or guests Include food, volume-linked labor, payment fees and other costs that increase with trading.
Partly fixed and partly variable Separate the two portions and count each once. The same payroll expense must not appear in both portions.

Using food cost alone as the variable-cost allowance can make the required guest count look too low. Contribution is also not profit per guest before the restaurant has covered its fixed costs. A profitable menu item can contribute toward overhead while the restaurant as a whole still loses money.

Menus contain meals and drinks with different prices and costs, so one average cover represents an expected mix of purchases. A shift toward lower-contribution orders changes the break-even requirement even when the number of guests stays the same. A higher average check can improve the calculation, but it does not establish that customers will accept higher prices or maintain the same purchasing mix.

Cover targets make a monthly budget easier to compare with actual trading. A rent increase, revised menu or shorter trading month can change the guest volume needed each day. Fewer open days concentrate the same monthly requirement into busier days when monthly costs remain unchanged. Dividing that requirement between lunch and dinner creates service targets, not additional demand.

Breaking even is an operating threshold, not a sales forecast or a measure of cash available in the bank. The required volume still needs to be compared with attainable demand and service capacity. A separate profit goal asks for enough contribution to cover the modeled costs and leave a specified monthly surplus.

How to Use This Tool:

Build one monthly scenario using a single currency. Results update as valid inputs change; there is no separate calculation step.

  1. Enter Monthly fixed costs and Average check per guest. Use the monthly fixed-cost total and net sales per guest, excluding pass-through sales tax and tips. The calculator does not remove these amounts from a gross check for you.
  2. Choose a Cost input mode. Select Variable costs as % of sales to enter the combined variable-cost percentage, or Contribution per cover to enter the amount remaining after variable costs. Switching modes uses the other mode’s existing entry rather than calculating an equivalent entry automatically.
  3. Enter Open days per month, Services per day and Expected covers per open day. Use actual trading days and a consistent service count. Expected covers are your forecast average, which may be fractional; enter 0 to model no sales.
  4. Set Monthly profit target under Advanced. Keep it at 0 for break-even only, or enter the monthly operating surplus you want above the modeled costs.
  5. Review the daily and per-service cover targets, then compare Expected operating profit / month in the Operating brief with your goal. The Operating ledger separates break-even requirements from profit-target requirements.
    If the summary shows Result unavailable, correct the field identified by its message. Required numbers cannot be blank, including Monthly profit target under Advanced; enter 0 rather than clearing it. Costs must also leave a positive contribution per guest.

Interpreting Results:

The headline shows Covers to break even when the profit target is 0 and Covers for your profit target when it is positive. Raising the profit target increases required trading; it does not raise your expected guest forecast. A positive Expected operating profit / month can still fall short of the requested profit.

Break-even sales / month and Target sales / month use the exact accounting thresholds. Whole-cover targets are rounded up separately for the month, open day and service. Consequently, multiplying a rounded daily target by all open days can exceed the monthly minimum. Multiplying rounded covers by the average check can also exceed the displayed sales threshold.

Sales margin of safety compares expected sales with break-even sales, not with profit-target sales. Its percentage describes the sales gap relative to expected sales.

Calculated condition Meaning
Greater than 0% Expected sales exceed break-even. This is the proportional sales reduction available before reaching break-even if the check and cost assumptions remain unchanged.
Exactly 0% with positive expected sales Expected sales equal the exact break-even requirement. There is no modeled sales cushion.
Less than 0% Expected sales fall short of break-even. The percentage is a sales shortfall, not an operating-profit margin.
Zero expected sales The percentage is undefined. The brief says Not defined at zero sales, rather than presenting a meaningful 0% margin.

The Profit curve relates average covers per open day to monthly operating profit, with reference lines at zero profit and the requested profit. It is a constant-assumption scenario, not a demand forecast or probability estimate. If the chart cannot load, read the brief and ledger for the operating values.

Technical Details:

Contribution-margin analysis represents each guest as an average sale. With a constant average check and variable cost per cover, each additional guest contributes the same amount toward fixed costs and profit. That produces a linear relationship between guest volume and monthly operating profit.

Contribution and monthly cover requirements

Let A be the average net check per guest, C the contribution per cover and V the variable cost per cover, all in the same currency per guest. When p is the entered variable-cost percentage, contribution is the part of the check that remains after that percentage is deducted. M is the contribution margin expressed as a percentage of sales.

C=A×(1−p100) V=A−C M=100×CA

In direct-contribution mode, C is the entered contribution rather than the result of the percentage equation. V and M still follow the other two equations. Changing A while holding a directly entered C constant affects sales and implied variable costs, but not the required covers or expected operating profit. In percentage mode, changing A while holding p constant also changes C.

Monthly fixed costs F are recovered at the exact break-even cover count Qb. Adding the monthly profit target P gives the exact target count Qt. F and P are currency amounts for the modeled month; dividing by currency per cover produces covers for that month.

Qb=FC Qt=F+PC

With P equal to 0, the two thresholds coincide. These are continuous accounting quantities, so a fractional answer is retained for sales calculations even though actual operating targets require whole guests.

Whole-cover targets and rounding

Let D be open days in the month and S be services per open day. For either exact monthly threshold Q, the monthly target Hm, daily target Hd and per-service target Hs are calculated independently. The ceiling brackets mean round upward to the next whole guest only when a fraction remains.

Hm=⌈Q⌉ Hd=⌈QD⌉ Hs=⌈QD×S⌉

Daily and service targets are not calculated from an already-rounded monthly or daily count. Whole-cover rounding uses the accepted decimal input values so that exact equality does not spuriously add a guest, while a genuine remainder still rounds upward. It does not use a contribution amount rounded to the displayed currency precision.

Money in the brief is displayed to two decimal places. General numbers, percentages and ledger values display up to two decimal places; whole-cover targets remain integers. Display precision can hide a small remainder or a small positive contribution. For example, a 30.00 check with 99.99% variable costs leaves 0.003 per cover, which displays as 0.00 in a money field but remains positive in the calculation.

If a required whole-cover target exceeds 9,007,199,254,740,991, results are withheld because the count cannot be represented reliably. The error asks you to check the cost scale and contribution per guest rather than supplying an approximate whole-guest target.

Sales requirements and expected profit

Required sales use the unrounded thresholds. Rb and Rt are monthly break-even and target sales. For either threshold Q, the corresponding sales requirement per open day is A times Q divided by D.

Rb=A×Qb Rt=A×Qt Rday=A×QD

Let E be expected covers per open day. Multiplying by D gives expected monthly covers N. Expected revenue Re pays expected costs Te, leaving expected operating profit Πe. The forecast average is not rounded to whole guests before these calculations.

N=E×D Re=N×A Te=F+N×V Πe=N×C−F=Re−Te

The profit goal is not an additional expense in expected costs. It changes the required target, while expected profit continues to depend on E, D, C and F. Changing only S redistributes service targets without changing monthly sales or profit. Changing D leaves the monthly break-even requirement unchanged but changes expected monthly sales and profit when a positive E is held constant.

Margin of safety

The monetary safety gap B is expected monthly revenue minus exact break-even revenue. Its percentage B% divides that gap by expected revenue, so it is defined only when expected revenue is positive.

B=Re−Rb B%=100×BReforRe>0

A negative safety percentage can be below −100% because the shortfall can exceed expected sales. At zero expected covers, revenue is zero, expected profit is minus fixed costs, and the monetary gap is minus break-even revenue. The percentage remains undefined even when fixed costs are also zero.

Input bounds and valid zero cases

Active numeric inputs must be finite decimal numbers within the following limits. These are accepted input ranges, not restaurant benchmarks. All monetary inputs use one currency without conversion.

Input Unit or requirement Accepted values
Monthly fixed costs and monthly profit target Currency for the modeled month 0 to 1,000,000,000 each
Average check per guest Currency per cover 0.01 to 1,000,000
Variable costs Percentage mode; percent of sales 0% to less than 100%
Contribution per cover Direct mode; currency per cover 0.01 to the average check, inclusive
Open days per month Whole trading days 1 to 31
Services per day Whole services per open day 1 to 10
Expected covers per open day Average guests per open day; fractions allowed 0 to 1,000,000

Zero variable costs, or direct contribution equal to the check, is valid and means the full check contributes toward fixed costs and profit. A 100% variable-cost share is rejected because contribution is zero. Positive contribution is required even when fixed costs and the profit target are both zero; with valid contribution, that zero-cost, zero-target scenario has zero required covers and zero required sales. Only the selected cost mode’s cost entry affects the calculation.

Limitations and Privacy Notes:

This is an educational operating estimate, not financial advice or a complete restaurant budget. The result is conditional on the costs, average check and guest forecast you enter.

  • Average spending, variable cost per cover and monthly fixed costs stay constant within a scenario. Menu-mix changes, discounts, additional staffing and other cost increases at higher volumes require revised assumptions; they are not calculated automatically.
  • Daily and service targets assume even trading. There is no forecast of weekday patterns, seasonality, unequal lunch and dinner demand, table turns, seating limits or kitchen and staffing capacity. A numerical target does not establish that the volume is attainable.
  • Operating profit is not cash flow or after-tax income. Debt principal, capital spending, tax and the timing of receipts and payments are not modeled. Those commitments need a separate budget before the result supports a financing or spending decision.

The arithmetic runs in your browser, but scenario inputs can be included in the page address and restored on reload. Treat a saved or shared address as potentially containing your restaurant’s costs and forecasts. Chart display can load an external resource, so local arithmetic does not guarantee a fully offline page.

Worked Examples:

All monetary amounts below use one consistent input currency. These are illustrative scenarios, not recommended restaurant cost ratios.

Covering costs before meeting a profit goal

With monthly fixed costs of 30,000, a 30.00 average check and 60% variable costs, each cover contributes 12.00 after 18.00 of variable costs. Dividing 30,000 by 12 gives 2,500 monthly break-even covers. Across 25 open days and two services per day, that is 100 covers per day and 50 per service, with break-even sales of 75,000.00. At the starting forecast of 100 daily covers, expected profit and the sales margin of safety are both zero. Entering 12.00 in direct-contribution mode gives the same economics. Adding a 6,000 monthly profit target raises the requirement to 3,000 covers per month, 120 per day and 60 per service, with target sales of 90,000.00. Even a forecast of 110 daily covers produces only 3,000.00 expected profit on 82,500.00 sales. Its positive 9.09% safety margin therefore does not mean the 6,000 profit goal has been met.

A small cost increase adds a required guest

Consider a 10.00 average check, 13% variable costs, 10 open days, two services per day and no profit target. Contribution is 8.70. Fixed costs of 870.00 require exactly 100 monthly covers, 10 per day and five per service; exact equality does not add another guest. Increasing fixed costs to 870.01 makes the exact monthly requirement approximately 100.001149 covers. Whole targets become 101 per month, 11 per day and six per service. Displayed break-even sales are 1,000.01, while 101 guests at a 10.00 average check represent 1,010.00 of sales. Serving 11 guests on every open day totals 110 guests, and six at every service totals 120. Both exceed the 101-guest monthly minimum because the uniform operating targets are rounded independently.

References: