How Many Cases to Break Even? A Step-by-Step Math Guide for Early Stage Brands
Key Takeaways
Many founders underestimate break-even volume because they ignore how trade spend, freight, and variable costs shrink contribution margin per case.
The break-even formula hinges on contribution margin accuracy, which requires real-world inputs like actual COGS, freight costs, and promo spend by channel.
Breakeven shifts dramatically depending on sales channel, with DTC showing stronger contribution per case but requiring more demand generation and logistics coordination.
Using a live, scenario-based break-even model helps founders make smarter decisions about pricing, promotions, SKUs, and operational levers before problems hit cash flow.
Selling cases is not the same as making money. For an emerging brand, that realization should be a real wake-up call. Your brand can have a great product, buzz, velocity, and growing revenue but still be burning cash if the underlying math is broken — a painful lesson for founders who price emotionally.
If that sounds like you, now is the moment to open a break-even calculator CPG founders can use, no matter what their finance background is. Forget dense financial theory, I’m giving you the exact, step-by-step formula to work out how many units to break even. We'll model it with a snack brand, show how distributor and retailer fees change your magic number, and give you the tools to finally price for profit.
I’ve spent nine years in FP&A and cost management, with four inside one of Argentina’s largest wine groups and the rest leading finance for Napa boutique wineries and emerging CPG brands at BBG. The math below is the same math I work through every week.
What Breakeven Means — and Why Founders Should Care
Breakeven is the point where gross profit covers your fixed costs. Until that point, every case sold increases revenue but still leaves you cash-negative. In founder language, breakeven tells you the minimum volume you need to stop losing money on operations.
Let’s anchor the vocabulary:
Fixed costs stay put regardless of volume. Think salaries for your core team, rent on your production bay, software and utilities, insurance, baseline compliance, and a reasonable level of professional fees.
Variable costs rise with each unit or case. Think cost of goods vs. retail price (ingredients, packaging, labels, and bottling labor), freight-in to your warehouse, pick and pack, parcel or LTL out, distributor and retailer deductions, and promo spend tied to velocity.
Contribution margin is the dollars left after variable costs. Those dollars pay for fixed costs. Once fixed costs are covered, contribution turns into profit.
Measuring breakeven in cases usually beats measuring in dollar, which hides mix shifts and channel differences. Cases force you to face the real physics of your business, and how many case equivalents need to leave the dock before overhead is paid.
The Formula: How to Calculate Your Break-Even Cases
Here’s the math most founders end up writing on a shipping manifest during receiving.
Break-even cases = Fixed costs ÷ Contribution margin per case
That means the whole exercise lives or dies on contribution margin per case. Build it like this:
Contribution margin per case
= Revenue per case
− COGS per case
− Promo/trade spend per case
− Other variable costs per case (freight, pick/pack, merchant fees, and packaging)
A few clarifications:
Revenue per case is the cash your brand receives for one case in a channel, not MSRP. For a distributor sale, start at MSRP and walk down through retailer margin, distributor margin, and any mandated fees until you land on your brand’s price per unit. Then, multiply by units per case. For DTC, revenue per case usually equals MSRP times units, reduced by discounts and refunds.
COGS per case should match your latest production run, not the optimistic quote you used months ago. Pull the number the factory or bottling hall actually billed, including surcharges and yield loss.
Promo/trade spend per case sits on top of price and pulls dollars out of your revenue line. Depletion allowances, scan downs, BOGOs, and TPRs all live here. Track it as a percentage of channel revenue and convert to dollars per case.
Other variable costs per case include freight to your 3PL, parcel or LTL outbound, pick/pack, merchant fees, and packaging inserts. A tidy promo spend calculator and a simple shipping matrix will keep this honest.
Once contribution margin per case is solid, the break-even math becomes a single division problem. That’s the point. Clean inputs, clear output, and fewer surprises at month-end.
If contribution margin per case feels tiny, the break-even case count will explode. That’s the model doing you a favor. Better to see it now than after your next promo window or trade show push.
A $5 Snack Example: Breakeven in Real Numbers
Let’s run one example, the way I’d work it out with a client. Let's use a simple 12-pack case and a realistic channel stack.
Assumptions:
MSRP per unit: $5
Units per case: 12
Retailer margin: 40%
Distributor margin: 15%
Brand gross margin target at the case level (pre-promo, pre-freight): 40%
Promo/trade spend: 15% of brand revenue
Other variable costs: $5 per case (freight to 3PL, pick/pack, outbound to customer or DC)
Fixed costs for the year: $100,000
Steps:
Calculate brand revenue per case: Start at MSRP and walk down the ladder. Retailer pays 60% of MSRP: $5 × 0.60 = $3.00 per unit. Distributor takes 15% margin: $3.00 × 0.85 = $2.55 per unit to the brand. Revenue per case: $2.55 × 12 = $30.60
Apply COGS to hit a 40% gross margin at the brand level: A 40% margin implies COGS equals 60% of brand revenue. COGS per case: 0.60 × $30.60 = $18.36
Subtract promo/trade spend: Promo per case: 15% × $30.60 = $4.59
Subtract other variable costs: Freight, pick/pack, and outbound fees total $5.00 per case
Get contribution margin per case: Contribution per case = $30.60 − $18.36 − $4.59 − $5.00 = $2.65
Solve for break-even cases: Break-even cases = $100,000 ÷ $2.65 ≈ 37,736 cases
Many founders expect a few thousand cases. The math says nearly 38k cases just to stand still under that price architecture and promo plan.
What if you discount 5% more? Increase promo to 20% of revenue. Contribution per case drops to $1.12. Break-even cases jump to about 89,286. One extra promo decision can more than double your survival volume, and it often hits just as freight or packaging costs creep up.
Let’s translate that to wine. Picture a 12-bottle case of your Napa cabernet at $30 MSRP. A distributor program with a depletion allowance at key accounts plus a quarterly scan-down can move your net price faster than expected. After you stack those on top of fuel surcharges and a modest glass increase on the next run, contribution per case can shrink by a third. The model forces that conversation before you greenlight the program.
Channel Math: Why Breakeven Changes Depending on Where You Sell
Breakeven is a per-channel number that shifts with margins, fees, and logistics. Here’s a simple comparison using the same product cost as above (COGS per case $18.36) to help you set smarter volume goals:
Channel Revenue/Case Promo/Case Other Variable/Case Contribution/Case Break-Even Cases (at $100k Fixed Costs)
DTC E-commerce $60.00 $3.00 (5%) $15.60 $23.04 ~4,341
Wholesale (No Distributor) $42.00 $4.20 (10%) $5.00 $14.44 ~6,925
Distributor to Retail $30.60 $4.59 (15%) $5.00 $2.65 ~37,736
DTC shows the highest contribution per case in this view, but the real constraint is often demand generation, customer acquisition cost, returns, and retention. Treat CAC consistently, either as fixed marketing or as a variable that scales with orders.
Wholesale direct trims the middle but often requires field support, free fills, chargebacks, and quarterly business reviews. Those dollars either live in promo or in other variable costs, and the placement should be consistent across SKUs.
Distributor routes look lean on contribution. They scale volume and shelf presence, so they matter strategically, but the path to early-stage brand profitability often runs through a mix of DTC cash flow, careful distributor programs, and a few high-velocity wholesale partners rather than one channel alone. And remember that retailer compliance deductions behave like variable costs. Place them consistently so the model doesn’t hide recurring chargebacks or OTIF penalties.
Wine brings a few wrinkles you should model up front:
Heavier glass and wooden shippers bump freight and fuel surcharges and then ripple through your contribution per case.
A higher-cost vintage with the same MSRP lowers margin unless you adjust promo, packaging, or case count.
DTC requires adult-signature services. Expect higher parcel costs, stricter delivery windows, and seasonal holds for heat or cold that extend storage fees.
Model It, Stress Test It, and Then Use It To Make Decisions
A break-even model shouldn't be a one-time slide for an investor pitch deck. Treat it as a working tool you update monthly. Model two to three of the following scenarios every planning cycle:
High-promo quarter: Map a price-forward retailer pushing TPRs and scan-downs through a distributor. Pull promo from 15% to 22% for those accounts and watch contribution per case. Decide how much volume you need to justify it.
New channel entry: Add a regional distributor with a slotting ask and conservative initial orders. Put the slotting in fixed costs or amortize it per case for the first six months. Check the impact on breakeven and cash.
Pricing for margin: Lift MSRP by $0.50 and hold promo flat. Recalculate revenue per case by channel, compare outcomes, and note how many cases you’ve removed from your break-even wall.
COGS shock scenario: Model a glass or ingredient increase plus a freight bump at the same time. Identify the first lever you’ll pull to defend contribution per case.
Then, bring the math into real decisions:
Assortment: Keep SKUs that contribute. Retire SKUs that never clear fixed costs without unsustainable promo, deep discounting, or one-off programs.
Promo discipline: Fund programs that drive true velocity, not just a sales graph, vanity rankings, or temporary buyer attention. Bake post-promo slumps into your model.
Operations: Negotiate freight and pick/pack based on your real carton mix. Trimming variable costs by 50 cents per case can remove thousands of cases from your break-even target.
Channel pacing: Set realistic growth curves for each route to market so cash flow isn’t pinned to a single buyer’s timeline, a single DC slot, or one delivery window.
Let’s say your rosé 12-pack sells at $18 MSRP per bottle through a distributor. A seasonal depletion allowance at $1.50 per bottle and a retail scan-down equal to 10% of shelf price look small in isolation. After you stack them on top of fuel surcharges and a modest glass increase on the next run, contribution per case can shrink by a third.
Breakeven Isn’t Optional — It’s Survival
You can’t plan for growth until you know where the floor sits, and break-even math gives you that floor. Once you know the number of cases required to cover fixed costs, you can price with intent and stop over-investing in promotions that only make the graph look good.
If you want a simple calculator that mirrors the steps above, grab the download and plug in your real numbers. If you want a CPG financial modeling partner to build a channel-by-channel model that ties to your cash plan, my finance, accounting, and operations teams at BBG can help you get there without guesswork.
Ready to stop guessing and start modeling? Talk with BBG's wine specialist finance team about pricing for margin, channel-specific break-even planning, and the financial rhythms that keep early-stage brands alive:
