How to use this tool

Discount break-even

When to use this tool

Use it before you run a promotion. A discount cuts the contribution you keep on every sale, so you have to make up the lost margin with extra volume — and because you now earn less per unit, the extra volume needed is almost always far bigger than the discount itself. This tool turns “20% off” into the real number of units you’d need to sell just to stand still.

Currency, tax & royalties

These live in the toolbar and work the same on every tool:

Currency: Pick your currency from the selector — it relabels the tax field to match your region.
Tax rate: Type your tax rate in the field beside the currency, or set it to 0 if you don’t want to factor in tax.
Royalties / commission: Optional. Switch on “Factor in royalties or commission” to open a panel where you set the rate with the slider (or type it exactly), rename it Royalty or Commission, and charge it on net or gross sales.

Discount break-even features

What you enter for this tool, and what it gives back:

The item: The current sale price (inc tax) and the item cost (ex tax) — everything it takes to make or buy one, waste included, as a single figure.
The promotion: The discount as a % off, or type the discounted price and the tool works out the %. It re‑runs the maths at the lower price beside full price.
Your volumes: The units you currently sell, plus a realistic max that caps the forecast slider and marks a guide line on the chart — so the answer reads as real units, not just a %.
Sales forecast: The extra sales you expect. It starts at the typical food & drink lift; push past it and the read climbs from optimistic to unlikely to highly unlikely.
Result & export: The uplift scale and break‑even chart show whether your forecast clears break‑even (green) or not (red). Drag the slider to test live, then export a PDF report.

Your data

These buttons sit in the “Your data” panel at the foot of the page and work the same on every tool:

Download template: Downloads a blank Excel template you can fill in offline.
Upload template: Reads a filled‑in template back in and fills the tool in one go.
Save scenario: Saves everything you’ve entered to a file you can back up or share.
Load scenario: Re‑opens a scenario you saved earlier.
PDF report: Generates a clean PDF of the analysis, ready to save, print or share.

Jargon buster

Contribution: Net revenue less cost of sales and any royalty or commission — what a sale adds before labour and overheads.
Cost of sales (C.O.S): What the product costs you to make or buy — ingredients, packaging and waste — usually shown as a % of net revenue. Excludes labour and overheads.
Gross profit & %: Net revenue less cost of sales; the % expresses it as a share of net revenue — the mirror of cost‑of‑sales %.
Gross revenue: The total the customer pays, including tax.
Labour: The wage cost of the staff involved, usually shown as a cash figure or a % of net revenue.
Margin of safety: How far sales could fall before you stop making a profit — the cushion between your forecast and break‑even.
Net revenue: Gross revenue with tax removed — all the margin maths is worked on this figure.
Royalty / commission: A fee paid as a % of each sale, charged on net or gross. Optional — switch it on only if your business pays one.

Your figures

The item's price and cost, the discount, and how much you currently sell.

The item

Current price £ inc VAT

Item cost £ ex VAT

The discount

Discount % off — or set the price

Discounted price £ inc — or set %

Sales volume

Current units sold per period

Max units most you could sell

Contribution per item, before & after

Your contribution on a single item — full price vs discounted — after VAT, cost and any royalty. Every pound of discount comes straight off it.

Sales forecast

Expected uplift % more than current

Units you expect total, at the discount

Drag to adjust+30%

Where the typical lift and your forecast sit against the uplift you'd need just to break even.

Discount Break-even Tool