About the Coffee Shop Profit Calculator
This coffee shop profit calculator projects the monthly and annual profit of a café from a handful of numbers: how many drinks you sell a day, the average price, the cost to make each drink, days open, and your monthly labor, rent and other overhead. Card processing fees are deducted as a percentage of sales.
It is built for people writing a coffee shop business plan, owners checking whether a price increase or a busier location is worth it, and investors sanity-checking a pitch. The break-even figure shows how many drinks per day you must sell just to cover costs, which is often the most useful number when comparing sites.
Cost per drink should include coffee, milk, syrups, cups, lids and sleeves. Labor should include payroll taxes and benefits (and the owner’s pay if they work shifts). The model treats all sales as drinks; if you sell food, fold it into the average price and cost per item or run it separately.
With the default inputs, the monthly net profit is $6,608.13. Change any value above to recalculate instantly.
How to use the coffee shop profit calculator
- 1Estimate drinks per day and the average price per drink.
- 2Cost out your menu to get the average ingredient and cup cost per drink.
- 3Enter monthly labor, rent and other overhead.
- 4Add your card processing rate and days open per month.
- 5Review monthly profit and the break-even drinks per day.
Formula and method
Monthly revenue is drinks per day × average price × days open, and cost of goods sold is drinks per day × cost per drink × days. Card fees are a percentage of revenue. Net profit is revenue minus COGS, card fees and the fixed monthly costs (labor, rent and other overhead), before income tax.
Break-even drinks per day divide fixed monthly costs by days open × the contribution per drink, where contribution is price × (1 − fee rate) − cost per drink, rounded up to a whole drink. Labor is treated as fixed because cafés usually staff a set schedule regardless of daily volume.
- D
- Drinks sold per day
- P
- Average price per drink
- C
- Cost per drink (ingredients and packaging)
- f
- Card processing fee rate
Worked examples
250 drinks a day at $5.25
250 × $5.25 × 30 days = $39,375 revenue. Subtract $10,125 of ingredients, $1,141.88 of card fees and $21,500 of labor, rent and overhead to get about $6,608 profit a month. Each drink contributes $3.75, so break-even is 21,500 ÷ (30 × 3.748) ≈ 192 drinks a day.
Small café open 26 days, 150 drinks a day
Revenue of $18,525 does not cover $5,460 of COGS, $509 of card fees and $14,700 of fixed costs, leaving a monthly loss of about $2,144. The shop needs roughly 176 drinks a day to break even.
High-traffic shop: 400 drinks at $5.75
400 × $5.75 × 30 = $69,000. After $15,000 COGS, $1,794 in fees and $33,500 of fixed costs, profit is $18,706 a month (27% margin). Break-even is about 257 drinks a day.
Frequently asked questions
How much profit does a coffee shop make?+
It depends mainly on volume, price and rent. Because labor and rent are largely fixed, profit rises quickly once daily sales pass break-even — which is why the break-even drinks per day figure matters so much.
What is a typical cost per cup of coffee?+
Ingredient and packaging cost usually ranges from well under a dollar for drip coffee to around $1.50 or more for large milk drinks with syrups and alternative milks. Cost out your own recipes for accuracy.
What should my coffee shop food and beverage cost percentage be?+
Many cafés target beverage cost of roughly 20%–30% of the selling price. Divide your cost per drink by the price; in the default example $1.35 ÷ $5.25 is about 26%.
How many cups a day does a coffee shop need to sell?+
Divide your fixed monthly costs by days open and by the contribution per drink (price after card fees minus cost per drink). This calculator does that for you and rounds up.
Is this profit before or after tax?+
It is operating profit before income tax, depreciation of equipment and any loan principal you choose not to include in overhead. Add loan payments to other overhead for a cash-flow view.