Free tool

Hotel Break-even Calculator

What occupancy do you need to break even? Enter your numbers and see your break-even point — free, no sign-up. If you operate seasonally, the calculation spreads the fixed costs of the closed months over the months you're open.

Monthly fixed costs (€)

Whatever doesn't change with occupancy: management and front-desk salaries, loan or rent, insurance, accountant, software, maintenance, fixed utility bills.

Variable cost per occupied room — CPOR (€)

What each occupied room costs you: housekeeping, linen, amenities, energy. Excluding OTA commission — what goes in and what doesn't (in Greek).

Average daily rate — ADR (€)

The average rate you sell a room for per night, as recorded in your system — before the channel's commission.

Total rooms

How many rooms the property has.

Operating days this month

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 all your 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.

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:

Break-even room nights = Monthly fixed costs ÷ (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 repayments, insurance and basic maintenance don't stop in November. 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 fixed costs for the whole year and the months you actually operate, and the calculation spreads them for you:

Fixed costs per operating month = Annual fixed costs ÷ Operating months

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 (in Greek).

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 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: Booking & OTA commissions (in Greek).

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 it in every nightly report, inside the P&L Statement (USALI) — along with CPOR and GOPPAR, with the allocation basis stated.