Pricing What-If Calculator
The scary question about raising a price is how many customers you would lose, and nobody can answer it honestly. There is a better question with an exact answer: How many can you afford to lose? Put in your price and what a unit costs you, and this shows what every move needs from your volume just to break even.
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At $100 with $60 in variable cost, you keep $40 of every sale (40% contribution). Here is what each move needs from your volume just to break even.
| Move | Break-even volume | The plain read |
|---|---|---|
| -10% | +33% | Cut 10%: You have to win at least 33% more sales, about 1 in 3, just to break even. |
| -5% | +14% | Cut 5%: You have to win at least 14% more sales, about 1 in 7, just to break even. |
| +5% | -11% | Raise 5%: You can afford to lose up to 11% of sales, about 1 in 9, before it costs you. |
| +10% | -20% | Raise 10%: You can afford to lose up to 20% of sales, about 1 in 5, before it costs you. |
Every number above is exact. It is a fact about your cost structure, not a guess about your customers, so it needs no assumption about how price-sensitive they are.
Optional: Test a number you actually expect
If you raised your price 10% and think you would lose some sales, put that in. Whatever comes back is your assumption worked through, not a prediction of what would happen.
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How it decides
A price change lands entirely on the margin you keep per unit, because your cost to make one more does not move. Raise the price and every remaining sale earns more, so you can lose some and still come out even. Cut the price and every sale earns less, so you have to make it up in extra volume. The break-even shift is that trade written out, the exact fraction of your sales a move can afford to lose, or has to win, before your total contribution changes.
Thin margins are where this surprises people. The less you keep per sale, the more volume you can afford to lose on a raise, and the more you have to win back on a cut. A discount that feels friendly can quietly require a third more customers just to stand still.
What it will not tell you
It will not tell you how much volume you will actually lose. That depends on your customers, your competitors, and how the change is handled, and any tool that claims to predict it is guessing. The break-even number is the honest half: It tells you the size of the bet, not whether you will win it. If you enter a volume you expect, the calculator works it through and labels it plainly as your assumption, because that is what it is.
It also assumes one price and one variable cost. A business with a wide menu should run the items that carry the business rather than an average, and a seasonal one should think in its real stretches, not a blended year.
The part the math misses
A break-even number tells you the room you have, not whether to use it. What a price says about your business, what your regulars will forgive, and where you sit against the shop down the road are judgment calls the arithmetic cannot make. The number is there to keep the judgment honest, so a fear of losing a few customers does not stop a move your margins can easily carry.
If a pricing decision is sitting on your desk, that is the kind of thing worth a conversation.
Rather have someone work through this with you?
The assessment is free. We pull your public data and show you what we see, and your numbers stay yours.