Business Planning Calculators

About Business Planning calculators

Most small business decisions come down to a handful of relationships. Contribution margin and break-even show how many sales cover your costs. Burn rate and runway show how long cash lasts. Valuation, pre- and post-money and payback tools help you price a company or an investment, while cost, labor and consulting-fee tools set the price of your own time.

Operations tools cover inventory (FIFO, safety stock, sell-through and GMROI), project control (earned value, burndown and expected monetary value) and market structure (HHI and the Lerner index). Each page lists its formula and a worked example so you can adapt the logic to a spreadsheet or a business plan.

How to use business planning calculators

Start with the numbers you already have: price, unit cost, fixed costs and cash on hand. The Break-even Calculator turns them into the sales volume you need, and the Burn Rate Calculator shows how many months your cash will last. Run both before you commit to hiring, a lease or a loan.

Next test the upside. The business valuation calculator compares earnings, revenue and cash-flow methods, while the pre- and post-money calculator shows what a funding round does to ownership.

• Costs. Use the contribution margin, cost function and labor cost calculators to separate fixed from variable costs and to find the true cost of each employee.
• Inventory. FIFO, LIFO, safety stock and GMROI show how much stock to hold and whether it earns its keep.
• Projects. Earned value (EVM), expected monetary value and the profitability index rank projects by cost, schedule and risk.

Reading the results

A calculator is only as good as its inputs. Write down where each number came from, change one assumption at a time and keep the scenario that would hurt most. If break-even sits far above realistic sales, change price, cost or scope before you spend money.

What you can calculate

• Burn Rate Calculator: Work out your monthly net burn and how many months of cash runway you have left.
• Break-even Calculator: Find the number of units and the sales revenue you need to cover fixed and variable costs.
• Contribution Margin Calculator: Calculate contribution margin in dollars and as a percentage of sales.
• Average Fixed Cost Calculator: Spread total fixed costs over the units you produce to see fixed cost per unit.
• Cost of Goods Sold Calculator: Calculate COGS from beginning inventory, purchases and ending inventory.
• Business Valuation Calculator: Estimate company value from earnings, revenue or discounted cash flow methods.
• Pre and Post Money Valuation Calculator: See post-money valuation, investor ownership and founder dilution for a funding round.
• Additional Funds Needed Calculator: Estimate outside financing needed to support forecast sales growth.
• Build vs. Buy Calculator: Compare the total cost of building a solution in-house against buying one over several years.
• 3D Printer - Buy vs Outsource Calculator: Decide whether to buy a 3D printer or pay a service bureau for your parts.
• Business Budget Calculator: Plan a monthly business budget and see projected profit and margin.
• Consulting Fees Calculator: Set an hourly, daily or project rate that hits your income goal.
• Cost of Doing Business Calculator: Total the real cost of running a business including overhead and labor.
• Cost Function Calculator: Build a linear cost function and find total, average and marginal cost at any output.
• Direct Material Price Variance Calculator: Measure the price variance between actual and standard material cost.
• EVM Calculator: Earned value management: cost and schedule variance and performance indexes for a project.
• Effective Corporate Tax Rate Calculator: Find the effective tax rate a company actually pays on pre-tax profit.
• EMV Calculator – Expected Monetary Value: Weight outcomes by probability to find the expected monetary value of a decision.
• FIFO Calculator for Inventory: Cost your ending inventory and COGS using first-in, first-out layers.
• GMROI Calculator — Gross Margin Return on Investment: Measure the gross margin earned per dollar of average inventory.
• HHI Calculator (Herfindahl-Hirschman Index Calculator): Measure market concentration from the market shares of competing firms.
• High-Low Method Calculator: Split a mixed cost into fixed and variable parts using its highest and lowest activity levels.
• Labor Cost Calculator: Find the true hourly and annual cost of an employee including taxes and benefits.
• Man-Hours Calculator: Total the man-hours a job needs from people, hours and days.
• Lemonade Stand Calculator: Simulate daily lemonade stand profit from cups sold, price and ingredient cost.
• Lerner Index Calculator: Measure a firm’s market power as the markup of price over marginal cost.
• Liquid Net Worth Calculator: Total cash and easily sold investments minus all debts to find liquid net worth.
• Operating Asset Turnover Calculator: See how efficiently operating assets generate sales.
• Parking Ratio Calculator: Calculate parking spaces per 1,000 square feet or per unit for a property.
• PVGO Calculator: Split a stock price into the value of current earnings and the present value of growth opportunities.
• Price / Quantity Calculator: Find revenue and the effect of a price change on units sold using elasticity.
• Profitability Index Calculator: Rank projects by the present value of cash flows per dollar invested.
• Revenue Per Employee Calculator: Measure productivity as annual revenue divided by headcount.
• Safety Stock Calculator: Set a safety stock level and reorder point from demand and lead-time variability.
• Sales Commission Calculator: Calculate commission with a base rate plus an accelerator above quota.
• Sell-Through Rate Calculator: See what share of received inventory actually sold during a period.
• Software Contract Value Calculator: Compute total and annual contract value (TCV and ACV) for a software deal.
• Accumulated Depreciation Calculator: Find accumulated depreciation and net book value of an asset using straight-line depreciation.
• Average Collection Period Calculator: Calculate how many days it takes to collect payment from customers.
• A/R Days Calculator: Count accounts receivable days: how long invoices stay unpaid.
• Burndown Chart Calculator: Project sprint completion from remaining work and team velocity.
• Days Off Calculator: Work out annual days off from paid leave, holidays and weekends.

Frequently asked questions

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