Break-even for a shop: how much must you sell each day?
Work out the daily sale your shop needs to cover rent, salaries and bills, with a worked example, and three ways to bring that number down.
Munshi Team · 18 Oct 2026 · 3 min read
"Sale achi thi aaj" is how most shopkeepers judge a day. But a good-looking sale can still be a losing day if it doesn't cover what the shop costs to run. The number that tells you is the break-even sale: how much you must sell before you earn a single rupee of profit.
The break-even calculator works it out from your own numbers in a minute.
Fixed costs: what you pay even if you sell nothing
Write down what goes out every month whatever the sale:
- rent
- salaries, including your own
- bijli, gas, internet and phone
- committee, loan instalment, security guard, chai and anything else regular
Say that comes to Rs 1,25,000 a month: Rs 40,000 rent, Rs 60,000 salaries, Rs 15,000 bills and Rs 10,000 other.
Your average margin
Every sale leaves you only the margin. If you buy at Rs 85 and sell at Rs 100, Rs 15 of each Rs 100 is left to pay those fixed costs. That is a 15% margin. A kiryana store with mostly flour, oil and sugar may be nearer 8–10%. A cosmetics or mobile accessories shop can be 25% or more.
If you don't know your margin, take a month's sale and what you paid suppliers for the goods you sold. The gap divided by the sale is your margin.
The sum
Break-even sale = fixed costs ÷ margin.
| Fixed costs a month | Margin | Sale needed a month | Sale needed a day (28 days) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rs 1,25,000 | 15% | Rs 8,33,333 | Rs 29,762 |
| Rs 1,25,000 | 10% | Rs 12,50,000 | Rs 44,643 |
| Rs 1,25,000 | 20% | Rs 6,25,000 | Rs 22,321 |
Look at how much the margin changes the answer. The same shop needs Rs 44,643 a day at 10% but only Rs 22,321 at 20%.
Three ways to bring it down
- Lift the margin on slow items. Customers compare the price of oil and sugar, not of hair clips or spices. A few rupees more on items nobody compares adds up.
- Cut a fixed cost. An unused second line, a generator running when it doesn't need to, staff hours when the shop is empty.
- Bring back customers who stopped coming. A regular who buys Rs 1,000 a week is Rs 4,000 a month of sale you already had once.
Check it every month
Break-even moves when rent goes up or a new salary is added. In Munshi, expenses and sales sit together, so the month's profit is on one screen without a calculator.
Put your numbers in the break-even calculator, and start free to see the real profit each day.
Try it free in your own business
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