Market stall break-even calculator
Before you book the next craft fair, see the takings you need to cover the stall fee, travel, product cost and card fees, and what the day pays you per hour.
Do this for every market day. The Craft Fair & Market Stall Inventory and Takings Tracker counts stock out and back, checks takings against it, and shows profit per hour for every market.
Get the spreadsheet, A$24 (GST included where applicable)How market stall break-even works
A busy stall feels like a good day. Break-even tells you whether it was. Every market has costs you pay no matter what you sell, and every sale only keeps part of its price.
1. Fixed costs for the day
Stall fee, return travel at your vehicle running cost, and the extras: parking, food, bags and packaging. You pay these before the first customer arrives.
2. What each dollar of takings keeps
Product cost is what the item cost you to make or buy, as a percentage of its price. A candle that costs $7 to make and sells for $20 has a 35% product cost. Card fees take the reader's percentage on the share paid by card. What is left from each $1 is your contribution: 1 − product cost % − (card share × card fee %). At 35% product cost and 70% of sales on a 1.6% reader, you keep about 64 cents of every dollar.
3. Break-even
Break-even takings = fixed costs ÷ contribution. Divide by your average sale to get the number of sales you need. With $153 of fixed costs and 64 cents kept per dollar, you need about $240 in takings, or 9 sales at $28.
4. Profit per hour decides which markets to keep
Count the whole day: packing, driving, setup, trading and pack-down. Profit ÷ those hours is what the market paid you. The calculator also shows the takings needed to hit your target hourly rate, so you know what a market must deliver before you pay the fee.
Enter every cost and price ex GST. The GST switch shows prices, fees and takings with or without GST; costs and profit always stay ex GST. Set the rate to 0 if you are not registered.
After the day, count what came home. Units packed minus units returned is what you sold, and that is how our workbook tracks every product and every event.
Buy the spreadsheet: Craft Fair & Market Stall Inventory and Takings Tracker
Count your stock out and back, check your cash and card against it, and see which markets are worth your weekend. An inventory and takings tracker for makers who sell at craft fairs, markets and pop-ups, in one workbook for Excel and Google Sheets.
What it does
- Pack & count: enter units packed before each market and units returned after. Units sold, expected takings and cost of goods fill in for every product
- Checks the cash, card and other takings you count at pack-down against what your stock count says you sold, and flags events off by more than your alert amount
- Deducts stall fee, travel, card reader fees and cost of goods to give profit and profit per hour for every market
- Tracks stock on hand per product across all events and flags products to reorder
- Records weather, crowd and event type so you can compare like with like
- Year dashboard: events, takings, profit, profit per hour, units sold, products to reorder, variance, event and product tables, 3 charts
What's inside
- Start here sheet with 5-step setup
- Settings: card reader fee %, other payment fee %, variance alert amount, event types, weather, crowd, product categories
- Products (200 rows): unit cost, price, stock, reorder level, units sold, stock on hand, margin, revenue, profit
- Events (100 rows): takings, payment fees, expected takings, variance, units sold, cost of goods, profit, profit per hour, average sale
- Pack & count (3,000 rows) with product and event dropdowns
- Dashboard with 3 charts
- Quick-start PDF
- Sample data so you see it working; delete it in a few clicks
A$24 (GST included where applicable), one-off digital download
Get the spreadsheet