September 22, 2026
LivePlan's break-even calculator is a genuinely useful free tool, but it's embedded in a business-planning platform built to sell you a paid plan for writing a full business plan around it.
If you're actually writing a full business plan — for a loan application, an investor, or your own long-term roadmap — LivePlan's ecosystem around the calculator adds real value. That's a bigger commitment than most people need just to answer one question, and it's a different search intent than someone who just wants a free profit point tool for a quick sanity check.
SMBkits' break-even calculator answers exactly that one question — how many units you need to sell to cover your costs — with no account, no upsell, and no business-plan template attached. Enter your fixed costs, price, and variable cost per unit, and get the number immediately, using the same fixed and variable cost calculator logic any break-even tool relies on.
The formula itself is worth knowing regardless of which tool computes it: Break-Even Units = Fixed Costs ÷ (Price − Variable Cost per Unit). Below that unit count, you're covering costs but not yet profitable; above it, every additional unit sold is pure contribution to profit. Visualizing where the total-cost line crosses the total-revenue line is exactly what a break-even chart shows.
If you're already scaling toward writing a formal business plan for funding, LivePlan's ecosystem around the calculator adds real value. If you just need to calculate business break even point right now for a pricing or budgeting decision, SMBkits' version gets you the number without the surrounding software.
| Feature | SMBkits | LivePlan |
|---|---|---|
| Account required | No | Free account for the calculator |
| Attached business-plan software | Not included | Core product, paid |
| Time to result | Under 30 seconds | Under 1 minute |
| Best fit | Quick pricing/budget check | Formal business plan for funding |
Your fixed costs (rent, salaries, anything that doesn't change with sales volume), your price per unit, and your variable cost per unit (materials, packaging, anything tied directly to each sale).
Any time a fixed cost changes — a rent increase, a new hire, a new recurring subscription — since those are exactly the inputs that shift the number.
Divide your total fixed costs by (price per unit minus variable cost per unit). The result is the number of units you need to sell before you start making a profit.