Business Expense Calculator

Total monthly and annual running costs, per category and per unit sold.

Business costs are easy to underestimate because they arrive from many directions and renew quietly. Listing them by category is the first step towards deciding which ones earn their place.

Enter your monthly categories and your revenue and volume, and this calculator shows the annual total, the share each category takes, the cost per unit sold and what is left.

At a glance

What you enter: Rent, rates and utilities, Salaries and contractors, Software and subscriptions, Marketing and advertising, Insurance, accounting and legal, Materials and stock, Travel and vehicles, Bank, payment and platform fees, Other costs, Monthly revenue, Units or jobs per month
What you get: Total monthly costs, Total annual costs, Cost per unit sold, Profit per month, Profit margin
Formula shown: Yes - every step, right below your results.
Cost and privacy: Free, no account needed, and nothing you type is stored.

See worked examples ↓ Read the FAQ ↓ Share this calculator ↓

Rent, rates and utilities

Salaries and contractors

Software and subscriptions

Marketing and advertising

Insurance, accounting and legal

Materials and stock

Travel and vehicles

Bank, payment and platform fees

Other costs

Training, equipment, postage, cleaning, professional memberships.

Monthly revenue

Units or jobs per month

Reset

Results are estimates for general information only - always verify with a professional or official source before acting on them.

How to use the Business Expense Calculator

1 Enter Rent, rates and utilities
2 Enter Salaries and contractors
3 Enter Software and subscriptions
4 Enter Marketing and advertising
5 Enter Insurance, accounting and legal
6 Enter Materials and stock
7 Enter Travel and vehicles
8 Enter Bank, payment and platform fees
9 Enter Other costs - Training, equipment, postage, cleaning, professional memberships.
10 Enter Monthly revenue
11 Enter Units or jobs per month
12 Press Calculate. You get Total monthly costs, Total annual costs, Cost per unit sold, Profit per month, Profit margin, and every intermediate step stays visible under “How is this calculated?”
13 Change one number at a time to see what moves the result - that is usually the most useful thing a calculator can tell you.

Worked examples

Real numbers run through this calculator. Open any example to load it into the form above and change it.

$16,750 a month of costs on $26,000 of revenue

A business with real staff costs and a healthy margin on 320 units a month.

You enter

Rent, rates and utilities: $2,200.00
Salaries and contractors: $9,500.00
Software and subscriptions: $500.00
Marketing and advertising: $1,200.00
Insurance, accounting and legal: $600.00
Materials and stock: $1,800.00
Travel and vehicles: $400.00
Bank, payment and platform fees: $250.00
Other costs: $300.00
Monthly revenue: $26,000.00
Units or jobs per month: 320

You get

Total monthly costs: $16,750.00
Total annual costs: $201,000.00
Cost per unit sold: $52.34
Profit per month: $9,250.00
Profit margin: 35.6%

The monthly costs are $16,750, or $201,000 a year, which is 64.4% of revenue and $52.34 for each of the 320 units sold. That leaves $9,250 of profit a month at a margin of 35.6%. Salaries are 56.7% of the cost base and rent is 13.1%, so people are the first line to look at and premises the second. Revenue of $20,937.50 would deliver a 20% margin, which the business is already above by $5,062.50.

Open this example in the calculator →

$4,590 a month of costs on $6,200 of revenue

A smaller operation with fewer people, lower overheads and a thinner margin.

You enter

Rent, rates and utilities: $800.00
Salaries and contractors: $2,400.00
Software and subscriptions: $150.00
Marketing and advertising: $250.00
Insurance, accounting and legal: $120.00
Materials and stock: $600.00
Travel and vehicles: $100.00
Bank, payment and platform fees: $90.00
Other costs: $80.00
Monthly revenue: $6,200.00
Units or jobs per month: 95

You get

Total monthly costs: $4,590.00
Total annual costs: $55,080.00
Cost per unit sold: $48.32
Profit per month: $1,610.00
Profit margin: 26.0%

Costs are $4,590 a month, or $55,080 a year, which consumes 74.0% of revenue and works out at $48.32 for each of the 95 units sold. Profit is $1,610 a month at a margin of 26.0%. Salaries are 52.3% of the total and rent 17.4%, so premises take a larger share here than in the bigger business. A 20% margin would need $5,737.50 of revenue, which is $462.50 less than the business already brings in.

Open this example in the calculator →

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Frequently asked questions

Are one-off costs and annual bills included?

Only if you put them in. The calculator adds the monthly categories you enter, so a laptop bought in March, a legal bill in June and a conference in October appear nowhere unless you spread them yourself and add the result to the relevant category.

Annual bills are the same. Insurance of $2,400 a year is $200 a month, and entering that month-equivalent keeps the monthly total honest. Leaving it out until the renewal arrives is how a year with twelve comfortable months ends in a single uncomfortable one.

Are salaries the gross pay or what actually leaves the account?

The figure should be what the business pays out, so gross pay plus employer contributions plus anything paid to contractors. Tax withheld from an employee is still money the business has spent, even though it is the employee who receives the net amount.

Owner drawings are a separate question. If you take money out as drawings rather than salary, that is not a cost of the business in the same sense, and including it makes the profit figure look worse than the accounts will. Decide which treatment matches how you file, and be consistent.

What is the cost per unit sold for?

It divides the monthly costs by the units or jobs you complete in a month, which turns the whole cost base into a single figure you can compare with your price. Costs of $16,750 a month over 320 units is $52.34 for every unit sold.

That is not the same as the variable cost of making one unit, because it includes rent, salaries and software, which do not rise with volume. It is the average cost at this volume, and it falls as volume grows, which is why a business can be unprofitable at 200 units and healthy at 400.

What does the largest category idea mean in practice?

The page identifies people and premises as shares of the total, because those two are usually the biggest and the slowest to change. Salaries at $9,500 of a $16,750 monthly total are 56.7%, and rent at $2,200 is 13.1%.

The advice is to look at the biggest line first, then at whatever renews automatically. Software subscriptions, insurance and memberships are small individually and grow quietly, and they are the easiest to cancel. Start with the category that costs the most and the category nobody has reviewed in a year.