Know the number of orders that keeps the lights on.
Every restaurant has a break-even point: the monthly order count where gross profit finally covers rent, payroll and the bills. Enter your fixed costs and see exactly where that line sits.
Your fixed costs each month
Fixed costs are the ones that arrive whether you sell one order or a thousand. Food cost is handled separately through your gross margin.
Rent for an independent Canadian restaurant commonly runs 6–10% of sales.
Include salaried managers and the baseline crew hours you schedule no matter what.
Hydro, gas, water, insurance, phone, internet, waste — the bills that arrive monthly.
POS and software subscriptions, loan or lease payments, accounting, marketing retainers.
827
About 27.2 orders a day, or $33,077 in monthly sales, before you make a dollar of profit.
Fixed costs: $21,500
Each order contributes $26.00
Break-even orders = fixed costs ÷ (average order value × gross margin)
Your order economics today
Canadian takeout averages $38–$55 per order.
Gross margin on food typically runs 60–75%. 100% minus this is your food cost.
20 orders a day is roughly 600 a month; 30 a day is about 900.
At 900 orders a month you clear break-even by 73 orders and keep $1,900 after fixed costs. You could lose 8% of your volume before you dip into the red.
Where you stand
Break-even revenue
$33,077
827 orders at $40.00
Current monthly revenue
$36,000
900 orders
Profit after fixed costs
$1,900
$23,400 gross profit − $21,500 fixed
Safety margin
8%
Volume you could lose and still break even
Profit by monthly order volume
The line crosses zero at your break-even point. Everything to the right of it is profit; everything to the left is money coming out of your pocket.
Two ways to lower the bar
Raising average order value moves break-even down faster than cutting costs. At $40.00 you need 827 orders; add $5 to every ticket and that requirement drops immediately.
Watch the commission drag
Orders that arrive through a delivery marketplace carry 20–30% commission, so they contribute far less toward these fixed costs than a direct order at the same price.
More free tools
See what your website is costing you in lost orders.
Model how word-of-mouth compounds over time.
Find the customer ceiling your churn rate creates.
What one customer is worth, and what you can spend to get one.
What delivery-app commission costs you every year.
The conversion rate your ads need to pay for themselves.
How much volume can you lose after raising prices and still break even?
How many new orders a promo needs to pay for itself.
Where distance turns a delivery order into a loss.
Whether your rewards program earns back what it gives away.
Food plus labour against the 60% benchmark.
Watch word-of-mouth spread through households — and where it stalls.
Work backwards from the profit you want to the orders and crew it needs.
Get more of your orders direct
Direct orders contribute full margin toward your fixed costs. See how MenuLogic moves customers off the marketplaces and onto your own site.
Book a free demoThese numbers are estimates based on what you enter and what we see across independent restaurants. They are not a guarantee of performance.
