Food Truck Break-Even Calculator
Find how many orders a day your food truck must sell to cover fixed costs, based on your average ticket and food-cost percentage.
How it works
Contribution = ticket − ticket × food-cost% · Break-even orders/month = fixed costs ÷ contribution · Orders/day = orders per month ÷ service days
A food truck’s fixed costs — the truck payment, insurance, permits, commissary rent and base wages — do not change with how many plates you serve. Each order chips away at them by its contribution: the ticket price minus its food and packaging cost. Dividing monthly fixed costs by that contribution gives the orders you must sell to break even, and spreading them over your service days turns it into a daily target you can actually manage on the truck.
Worked example
With $6,000 in monthly fixed costs, a $14 average ticket and 30% food cost, each order contributes $9.80. Break-even is 6,000 ÷ 9.80 ≈ 613 orders a month, or about 28 orders a day across 22 service days — roughly $8,575 in monthly sales.
Frequently asked questions
What food-cost percentage should a food truck target?
Most food operations aim for 28–35% food cost. Trucks with premium ingredients or generous portions run higher; those with simple, high-margin items like tacos or coffee can run lower. Lowering food cost raises the contribution per order and cuts the number you must sell.
Are wages fixed or variable?
It depends how you staff. A fixed crew you pay whether it is busy or slow belongs in fixed costs. If you add hourly help only on busy days, that portion behaves as a variable cost — fold it into the food-cost percentage instead.
How is break-even different from profit?
Break-even is the point where you cover costs and make nothing. Every order beyond it earns the full contribution margin as profit, so selling 40 orders a day when break-even is 28 puts the extra 12 orders’ contribution straight into your pocket.
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Educational estimate, not financial advice.