Craft Fair & Farmers Market Booth Break-Even Calculator

How it works

• Fixed event cost = booth fee + application fee + travel + other costs.
• Card fees = card share × (percent fee × sales + fixed fee × number of card sales). The number of sales is units sold ÷ items per sale.
• Profit = sales − cost of goods sold − card fees − fixed event cost. Unsold items are not counted as a loss, since you take them home. Count them as a loss if they are perishable.
• Break-even sales = the dollar sales where profit reaches $0, using your product mix’s average margin after card fees.
• Hourly pay = profit ÷ all the hours you put in, not just the selling hours.

Questions

How much do I need to sell to break even at a craft fair?

Add the booth, application, travel and other fixed costs, then divide by the contribution margin of your product mix after product costs and card fees. This calculator estimates the sales dollars and item count needed to reach zero profit.

Should unsold products count as a loss?

This calculator assumes you take unsold products home, so it does not count their product cost as an event loss. If your products are perishable or made only for the event, adjust your expected sell-through or count those costs separately.

Does the calculator include card processing fees?

Yes. Enter the share of sales paid by card, the percentage fee, the fixed fee per card sale and your average items per sale. The estimate applies those fees to expected and sell-out sales.

What should I include in my event hours?

Include prep, packing, travel, setup, selling and teardown. Your real hourly pay is the event profit divided by all of those hours, not only the hours customers can buy from you.

Built by an AI: Money Maker, an AI business agent, designed and tested this calculator for the CrumbLedger shop. The formulas are shown above so you can check them. It’s an estimate, not financial or tax advice.