Calculators
Small business calculators
Eight calculators, each answering one decision. Seven are pure arithmetic on the numbers you enter; the eighth uses cost assumptions we publish in full. Every formula is documented on the methodology page.
Written and reviewed by Aniruddha Biswas for Silver Shine LLC. Last reviewed: July 26, 2026.
Start from the question
Which calculator answers which question
Most people arrive with a decision rather than a calculator in mind. Find the question that matches yours.
| If you are asking… | Use | It tells you |
|---|---|---|
| How much can I afford to spend on marketing? | Marketing Budget Calculator | A monthly and annual budget, plus the revenue that budget must generate before it has paid for itself. |
| Is my paid search advertising actually making money? | Google Ads ROI Calculator | Whether gross profit from acquired customers exceeds media spend, and which link in the chain is failing. |
| Can an SEO retainer pay for itself? | SEO ROI Calculator | The return at your current organic traffic — and the gap between that and the traffic in the proposal. |
| Is my email programme worth the effort? | Email Marketing ROI Calculator | The absolute monthly return, which is usually the number that matters rather than the flattering percentage. |
| What should I budget for a website? | Website Cost Calculator | A scope-based planning figure plus ongoing care, built from cost assumptions we publish in full. |
| How much do I need to sell just to cover my costs? | Break-Even Calculator | The units or jobs per month required to cover fixed costs — and whether you can physically deliver them. |
| Where is my profit going? | Profit Margin Calculator | Whether the problem is the cost of delivering the work or the cost of running the business. |
| What sales target should I actually be working towards? | Monthly Revenue Goal Calculator | The revenue and the number of customers needed to cover costs and produce the profit you want. |
The words these tools use
Revenue, profit, margin, ROI and break-even are not the same thing
These five terms get used interchangeably in conversation and mean quite different things in a calculation. Mixing them up is the most common reason a calculator result looks fine while the business does not.
Revenue
Everything you invoiced, before any costs.
Watch out: The least informative number in business. It says nothing about whether the work was worth doing.
Gross profit and gross margin
What is left after the direct cost of delivering the sale — materials, direct labour, shipping, merchant fees. Margin is that figure as a percentage of revenue.
Watch out: This is the number most other decisions divide by. Getting the split between direct costs and overhead wrong quietly flatters it.
Operating profit and net margin
What is left after overhead too — rent, admin salaries, insurance, software. Net margin is that as a percentage of revenue.
Watch out: Pre-tax. It also tells you nothing about cash timing: a profitable month can still be one you cannot fund.
Contribution margin
Price minus variable cost, for one unit or job. The amount each additional sale contributes toward fixed costs.
Watch out: If this is zero or negative, no amount of volume helps — each extra sale increases the loss.
Break-even
The volume at which sales cover fixed costs and you have earned nothing.
Watch out: A floor, not a goal. Convert it into units per working day to judge whether it is achievable.
ROI and ROAS
ROAS compares revenue with spend. ROI, as used on this site, compares gross profit with spend.
Watch out: Not interchangeable. A campaign at 1.2x ROAS is losing money at any margin below about 83%.
Markup vs margin
Markup is calculated on cost; margin on price. A 50% markup is a 33.3% margin.
Watch out: Confusing the two underprices work by roughly a third, and it fails in the direction that feels safe.
Suggested order
If you are not sure where to start
These calculators are connected. Several divide by gross margin, so an inaccurate margin invalidates everything downstream. This order tends to save the most rework.
- 1 Establish your gross margin — Profit Margin Calculator. Almost every other tool here divides by this number.
- 2 Find your break-even volume — Break-Even Calculator. Convert it to units per working day and check it against real capacity.
- 3 Set a revenue goal that includes profit — Monthly Revenue Goal Calculator. Read the customer count, not the dollar figure.
- 4 Size the marketing budget that supports it — Marketing Budget Calculator. The coverage test uses the margin you just corrected.
- 5 Test individual channels — Google Ads, SEO, and Email ROI calculators — compared on gross profit, not revenue.
- 6 Scope a website only when the above is stable — Website Cost Calculator. A site is a large commitment against numbers that should already be sound.
What these estimates cannot do
- They are single-period models with no concept of timing. None of them knows that money arrives after the work.
- They use one blended average — one margin, one sale value — where most businesses have several.
- They cannot see seasonality, competition, capacity limits, or the quality of what you are selling.
- They are only as good as the numbers you put in, and default values are placeholders you should replace.
- They are educational planning aids, not tax, legal, accounting, investment, or financial advice.
Prefer to work offline?
Each calculator has a matching workbook in Excel and CSV, with live formulas in the Excel version.
Dashboard downloadsAll calculators
Browse the full set
Marketing Budget
Turn revenue, a budget percentage, and gross margin into annual, monthly, and weekly spend — plus the revenue that spend has to produce.
Google Ads ROI
Trace ad spend through clicks, leads, and customers to gross profit — and see which link in the chain is actually failing.
SEO ROI
Test whether an SEO retainer can pay for itself at your traffic, conversion rate, and margin — before you commit to months of it.
Email ROI
Check whether your list size, click rate, and order value can cover the platform bill — and what happens if you send more often.
Website Cost
Build a scope-based planning figure from our published cost assumptions, so you can read vendor proposals instead of guessing.
Break-Even
Find how many units or jobs cover your fixed costs, and whether that volume is one your business can physically deliver.
Profit Margin
Separate what delivery costs you from what overhead costs you, so you can see which of the two is eating the profit.
Revenue Goal
Work backwards from the profit you want to the revenue and number of sales that actually produce it.
USA Biz Profit Tools is operated by Silver Shine LLC. These calculators are free, require no account, and run entirely in your browser — the numbers you enter are not sent to us. See the privacy policy for what does and does not leave your device.