Free tool

Hotel Break-even Calculator

What occupancy do you need to break even? Enter your numbers and see the two break-even points WisDom RM shows too: the operating one and —if you enter rent, loan instalments and insurance— the cash one. Free, no sign-up. If you operate seasonally, the calculation spreads the fixed costs of the closed months over the months you're open.

Above GOP: management and front-desk salaries, accountant, marketing, maintenance, fixed utility bills, IT. Not rent, loan instalments or insurance — those go in the next field.
Below GOP — ownership costs: rent, the whole loan instalment, insurance & property taxes. Empty = not entered, not zero: you get the operating result only.
What each occupied room costs you: housekeeping, linen, amenities, energy. Excluding OTA commission — what goes in and what doesn't.
The average rate you sell a room for per night, as recorded in your system — before the channel's commission.
How many rooms the property has.
How many days you're open this month. Change it if you open or close partway through the month — the available room nights change, and so does the percentage.
Fill in the fields to see your break-even point.

What is break-even?

Break-even is the minimum occupancy you need to cover your fixed costs — no profit, no loss. Every room above it adds its contribution to the result; every room short of it leaves the same amount of fixed costs uncovered.

Two break-even points: operating and cash

Fixed costs are not one group. Fixed operating costs —management and front-desk salaries, accountant, marketing, maintenance, fixed utility bills, IT— sit above GOP, the gross operating profit. Fixed charges —rent, loan instalment, insurance and property taxes— are ownership costs and sit below GOP, as the USALI standard does.

The first group gives you the operating break-even: from there up, GOP is positive. Add the second and you get the cash break-even: the point where the bank account does not go negative. Between the two, the hotel runs at a profit but cannot carry its ownership costs.

WisDom RM makes the same split, and there too the charges are optional: if they don't apply to you —say you run the hotel on the owner's behalf— the calculation stops at GOP. An empty field means “not entered”, not “zero”.

How is it calculated?

First, work out what each room “leaves” after its variable cost (the contribution margin):

Contribution per room = ADR − CPOR (before OTA commission)

Then, how many of those room nights you need to cover the month's fixed costs — once for each break-even point:

Operating break-even = Fixed operating costs ÷ (ADR − CPOR)
Cash break-even = (Fixed operating costs + Fixed charges) ÷ (ADR − CPOR)

And you turn that into a percentage by dividing by the month's available room nights:

Break-even occupancy = Break-even room nights ÷ (rooms × operating days)

Watch out for the dead-end case: if your rate (ADR) is lower than the cost per room (CPOR), you don't break even at any occupancy — every room you fill costs you more than an empty one. The problem there isn't occupancy; it's the rate or the cost.

Seasonal operation: fixed costs run for 12 months

This is where the seasonal hotel in Greece trips up. Loan instalments and insurance don't stop in November — nor do the accountant and basic maintenance. If you enter only the fixed costs of one open month, the break-even point comes out falsely low — you end up with a profitable summer and a loss-making year.

That's why there's a second tab. You enter the amounts for the whole year —both operating costs and charges— and the months you actually operate, and the calculation spreads them for you:

Per operating month = Annual amount ÷ Operating months

The difference shows mostly in cash. In the article's example —charges of €8,000 a month, open 6 months— counting only one month's charges, the cash break-even looks like 49.4%; counting the whole year's (€96,000 ÷ 6 = €16,000 per open month), it is 57.2%. The calculator shows both, so the gap is visible.

And for a month you open or close partway through, the “operating days” field lowers the available room nights — so the same number of rooms correctly comes out as a higher percentage. The full worked example in euros is in the article hotel break-even.

What about OTA commission?

It doesn't go into CPOR. CPOR here means the same as it does inside WisDom RM: the room's operating variable cost — housekeeping, linen, amenities, energy. So ADR − CPOR is contribution before commission, not net profit.

In practice: the larger the share of bookings that come through OTAs, the higher your real break-even point is compared with the one you see here. In the blog's example, a 20% commission raises the operating break-even from 41.5% to 54.5% — without a single hotel cost changing. This calculator doesn't know your channel mix, so it doesn't guess: if you want the net figure, enter the rate after commission in the ADR field. How to get that number: OTA commissions.

Never want to work it out again?

This calculator gives you a snapshot. In practice, your break-even point moves every time a cost or the rate changes. WisDom RM (Manager) recalculates the operating one in every nightly report, inside the P&L Statement (USALI) — along with CPOR and GOPPAR, with the allocation basis stated. If you enter rent, loan instalments and insurance, the P&L also shows the cash break-even separately.

The numbers you enter here, explained

Cost & profitability What is hotel CPOR and how do you calculate it? What goes into the numerator and what doesn't, why variable CPOR doesn't rise when occupancy falls, and why it is the price floor of every offer. Cost & profitability Hotel break-even: how much occupancy do you need? The same calculation with a full worked example in euros — how it moves with rate and channels, and the seasonal trap. Cost & profitability OTA commissions: how they affect your hotel’s profit Why gross revenue misleads, how much commission raises the break-even point, and when an OTA booking pays off. KPIs What is hotel RevPAR and how do you calculate it? Room revenue over the rooms you had, not the rooms you sold — a worked example in euros, what RevPAR hides, and how to read it in a seasonal hotel.