Restaurant break-even calculator — how many covers a day do you actually need?
Most Indian operators run their restaurant for months without knowing the number below which they lose money and above which they make it. Plug in your rent, staff, food cost and average ticket — this calculator returns your exact break-even revenue, break-even covers per day, and how much cushion your current month is running on.
Your numbers
Enter monthly figures in ₹. Defaults reflect a typical Tier-1 casual dining outlet.
Your break-even
You're above break-even
Comfortable margin. Focus next on lifting average ticket and menu mix.
Why "break-even" is the one number every operator should know cold.
The formula is small. The consequences of getting it wrong are not.
Break-even revenue is the monthly top-line at which your restaurant's contribution — every rupee of sales that isn't food cost or aggregator commission — exactly equals your fixed cost. One rupee below that number and you're losing money. One rupee above and you're building profit. There is nothing more foundational to run a restaurant on.
The two most common mistakes operators make when they try to model this on the back of a napkin:
- Forgetting aggregator commission entirely. If 40% of your revenue is delivery and Swiggy plus Zomato are averaging 28% take rate on that share, that's roughly 11 percentage points of contribution margin you never see. A restaurant that "should" break even at ₹6 lakh actually breaks even at ₹8 lakh once aggregator take is honestly modelled.
- Treating staff wages as variable. Weekly rostering flexes only so much. Your kitchen crew and floor staff are a fixed cost across a normal month — even on the slowest Tuesday, the tandoor operator is on payroll. Modelling staff as a percentage of revenue overstates flexibility and understates real break-even.
What "contribution margin" actually means
Every rupee of revenue splits into three buckets. First, food cost — the raw ingredient cost of what you served. Second, aggregator commission on the delivery share. What's left after those two is the contribution margin — the portion of revenue that flows toward covering rent, staff and the rest of the fixed cost stack. When contribution margin is high, you need less revenue to break even. When it drops — food inflation, aggregator rate hike, discount promo — break-even shoots up disproportionately.
Why 5% food cost creep matters more than you think
Take a restaurant with ₹3 lakh fixed cost and a 60% contribution margin. Break-even is ₹5 lakh. Now push food cost from 30% to 35% — a 5-point shift that seems small. Contribution margin drops to 55%, break-even jumps to ₹5.45 lakh. That's ₹45,000 extra revenue you need every month just to stand still. On a ₹450 ticket, that's 100 more covers a month, or 3-4 more per day, forever. This is why menu engineering and vendor negotiation aren't optional — they're leverage.
The safety margin threshold
Once you know break-even, compare it to your current run rate. If current revenue is 20%+ above break-even, you're operating comfortably. Between 5-20%, you're viable but exposed — one bad month or one cost hike wipes you out. Below 5%, you're a rounding error away from bleeding. Below zero, you're already losing money and need to act this quarter, not next. For the full P&L reading framework, see how to read your restaurant P&L in 10 minutes.
Five levers to move your break-even down.
Every one of these has a direct impact on either fixed cost, contribution margin or average ticket. Pick the one closest to your bottleneck.
Renegotiate the lease before renewal
Rent is the single largest fixed cost for most outlets. Even a 10-15% reduction moves break-even by lakhs a year. Landlords settle for less than you think — especially in soft markets — if you approach the negotiation with data and options.
Lease negotiation playbookShift repeat orders to WhatsApp direct
Every order that moves from Swiggy or Zomato to WhatsApp direct claws back 25-30 percentage points of contribution margin on that order. Shifting even 20% of repeat volume changes break-even materially.
7 ways to reduce aggregator commissionLift average ticket via upsells
Break-even covers drop directly with average ticket size. Every ₹50 you add through desserts, add-ons or combo pricing means fewer covers needed to hit the same revenue — and every added cover is pure profit.
12 tactics to increase salesEngineer the menu — kill the Dogs
Menu engineering classifies every dish as Star, Plough Horse, Puzzle or Dog based on popularity and margin. Dropping Dogs and repricing Puzzles typically lifts contribution margin 3-5 points, which shifts break-even meaningfully.
Menu engineering frameworkTighten the weekly staffing model
Most outlets over-staff Tuesdays and under-staff Fridays. A proper daypart-by-daypart labour model can trim 8-12% off staff cost without hurting service — a direct hit to the fixed cost that drives break-even.
Weekly staffing modelGive operators the numbers automatically
The reason most outlets don't know their break-even is that pulling the numbers is manual and painful. A POS that surfaces food cost %, average ticket and daily revenue on one dashboard turns this from a quarterly exercise into a weekly one.
See the Ordering SuiteBreak-even questions Indian operators ask us.
What is a restaurant break-even point? +
The break-even point is the monthly revenue at which your restaurant covers every rupee of cost — rent, staff, utilities, food, aggregator commissions — with nothing left over and nothing lost. Below it you're bleeding cash; above it, every additional cover contributes to profit. Most Indian casual dining outlets break even between ₹6 lakh and ₹12 lakh a month, depending on location and fixed cost structure.
How do I calculate break-even covers per day? +
Start with break-even revenue = total fixed cost divided by contribution margin. Contribution margin is 100% minus food cost % minus blended aggregator commission %. Then divide break-even revenue by your average ticket size to get covers per month, and by 30 to get covers per day. This calculator does all four steps live as you type.
What's a healthy contribution margin for an Indian restaurant? +
For casual dining in India in 2026, a healthy contribution margin sits between 55% and 65% — that means food cost around 28-32% and blended aggregator commission around 8-12% depending on your dine-in vs delivery mix. Below 50% contribution margin, break-even revenue becomes very hard to hit on typical fixed cost structures. Above 65% usually means you're either dine-in heavy or running a lean QSR.
Should I include aggregator commission in fixed cost or variable cost? +
Variable. Aggregator commission scales with revenue — every additional Swiggy or Zomato order costs you 25-32% of that order's value. Treating it as fixed cost hides the real impact and produces a wrong break-even number. This calculator handles it correctly by pulling it out of contribution margin, not out of the fixed cost bucket.
What if my restaurant has multiple dayparts? +
Run the calculator with your blended average ticket across all dayparts. If lunch is ₹250 and dinner is ₹550 with roughly equal cover counts, use ₹400. For a more accurate view, calculate break-even for each daypart separately and add them — but for most operators the blended number is close enough to make weekly decisions. See our P&L breakdown guide for daypart-level modelling.
How often should I recalculate break-even? +
Recalculate every time a fixed cost changes — a rent hike, a new hire, an insurance renewal — and at minimum once a quarter. Aggregator commission rates also drift 2-3 percentage points a year, and food cost moves with input inflation. Operators who check break-even monthly catch drift before it eats a full month's margin.
Is 30% food cost realistic for casual dining India? +
Yes — 28-32% food cost is the standard band for Indian casual dining running a well-costed menu. QSR and cloud kitchens often run 25-28%. Fine dining sits at 32-38%. If your food cost is above 35% on casual dining, either your recipe costing is off, wastage is high, or menu engineering hasn't happened — see our menu engineering guide for the fix.
What break-even revenue should a new casual dining outlet target? +
A new 40-60 seat casual dining outlet in a Tier-1 Indian city typically needs to hit ₹8-12 lakh monthly revenue to break even, assuming rent of ₹60,000-1,20,000 and combined staff wages of ₹1,80,000-2,50,000. Model it before you sign the lease — if your projected covers per day at month six can't clear break-even, either the rent is too high, the menu pricing is too low, or the location is wrong.
Ship a POS that gives you these numbers automatically.
Our Ordering Suite tracks food cost, average ticket and daily revenue in one dashboard — the three inputs that move break-even. Pair it with Desktop POS for offline-safe billing. ₹199/month for the Suite, ₹4,999/year for Desktop POS. No lock-in.