Roofing
Roofing Business Break-Even Calculator
Find the revenue or job volume needed each month before the roofing business makes money.
Result
Break-even, not a target. It is the point where the business stops losing money, which is a floor rather than a plan. Owner's pay only counts here if it is inside the fixed costs you entered.
Get a Free Business AuditWhat moves the number
- Fixed costs, which for roofing include high insurance and vehicles.
- Contribution per job, which varies widely between a repair and a replacement.
- Seasonality, which means monthly break-even is met in some months and not others.
Where this one goes wrong
Calculating an annual break-even. Roofing income is seasonal and overhead is not, so the useful figure is which months fail to cover fixed costs and by how much.
Questions
About this calculator
How do I survive the off season?
Reserve from the peak deliberately, take repair and maintenance work that fits shorter weather windows, and avoid fixed commitments taken on during a good summer.
What counts as fixed in roofing?
Insurance, vehicles, equipment finance, any salaried staff and premises. Crew wages depend on whether you retain crews through the quiet months.
Should crews be retained year round?
It is a genuine trade-off between carrying cost and rehiring difficulty. Both have real costs and the right answer depends on how hard it is to find crews in your market.
The formula
break-even jobs = fixed costs / (average job value x gross margin%)
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How to use this calculator
- Monthly fixed costs ($). Rent, office wages, insurance, vehicle payments, software, advertising.
- Average job value ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $9,800.
- Gross margin per job (%). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 34%.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to jobs needed per month, and change it back. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
A worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with. Every number in the results column below is produced by the same calculation the page runs, so you can follow it through before putting your own figures in.
What goes in
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Monthly fixed costs | $18,000 |
| Average job value | $9,800 |
| Gross margin per job | 34% |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Jobs needed per month main result | 6 |
| Revenue needed per month | $58,800 |
| Gross profit per job | $3,332 |
| Jobs per working day | 0.2 |
You need 6 jobs a month, about 0.2 a working day, to cover $18,000 of fixed cost. That is $58,800 of revenue before the business earns anything.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only monthly fixed costs, this is what happens to jobs needed per month. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Monthly fixed costs ($) | Jobs needed per month |
|---|---|
| $9,000 | 3 |
| $13,500 | 5 |
| $18,000 example above | 6 |
| $27,000 | 9 |
| $36,000 | 11 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Monthly fixed costs ($)
- Rent, office wages, insurance, vehicle payments, software, advertising.
- Average job value ($)
- A money amount, starting at $9,800.
- Gross margin per job (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 95, starting at 34%.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Jobs needed per month | The headline result. A number. |
| Revenue needed per month | A money figure. |
| Gross profit per job | A money figure. |
| Jobs per working day | A decimal figure. |
What this cannot see
Material quantities assume a clean rectangular plane and the waste factor you enter. Valleys, hips, dormers, penetrations and a steep pitch all raise real waste, and a tear-off frequently uncovers decking that was not in the quote.
Estimating is the easy part
The jobs you never hear about cost more than the ones you mis-measure. BDEVY builds the marketing, systems and automation that bring them in.