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Ramen profitability calculator: how many customers cover your costs

You are ramen profitable when what your customers pay, after payment fees, covers your monthly costs. Divide your monthly costs by what one customer leaves you after the payment fee, then round up to a whole customer. Enter your numbers below to see that count, the MRR it takes and how many new customers replace churn each month.

Enter what you spend each month, what one customer pays each month and how many customers leave each month. Pick a payment provider or enter your own fee.

Your numbers

Enter a price to see the fee on one payment.

What covers your costs

Enter your monthly costs and price per customer to see the results.

How the calculation works

  1. Net per customer is the monthly price minus the payment fee on one payment.
  2. Customers needed is your monthly costs divided by net per customer, rounded up to the next whole customer.
  3. Break-even MRR is customers needed multiplied by the monthly price, before payment fees come out.
  4. New customers each month is customers needed multiplied by your monthly churn rate, rounded up, so the count stays level.
  5. If the payment fee is as large as the price or larger, net per customer is zero or less, and no number of customers covers your costs.

Each provider preset prices one subscription payment from a card in the same region as the currency, with no tax, including any subscription fee the provider lists. International cards, currency conversion, tax and refunds change the fee, so use Custom fee if yours differs.

The presets come from the payment fee calculator, which shows each provider's full rate breakdown, the page it comes from and the date it was checked.

Embed this calculator

You can put the ramen profitability calculator on your own site or blog for free. Paste this code where you want it to appear. It loads the same calculator in a frame, with a link back to this page. Where your site allows scripts, the frame resizes itself to fit.

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<p><a href="https://zeroraised.com/tools/ramen-profitability-calculator">Ramen profitability calculator by ZeroRaised</a></p>
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Frequently asked questions

What does ramen profitable mean?
Ramen profitable means a product brings in enough each month to cover a modest set of monthly costs, usually the founder's own basic living costs plus what it takes to run the product. This calculator uses whatever monthly costs you enter, so you decide what goes in.
How is the number of customers worked out?
Take the monthly price, subtract the payment fee on one payment to get net per customer, then divide your monthly costs by that net amount. The result is rounded up, because part of a customer pays nothing.
Why is break-even MRR higher than my monthly costs?
MRR, or monthly recurring revenue, is shown gross, before payment fees. The fee comes out of every payment, so the gross figure has to be higher than your costs by the fees on every customer, plus whatever rounding up to a whole customer adds.
What does new customers each month mean?
Monthly churn is the share of paying customers who leave in a month. Multiplying the customer count by that share, rounded up, gives the new customers you need each month just to stay at that count. It does not include any growth.
Why does it say no number of customers works?
If the payment fee on one payment is as much as the price or more, each customer leaves you nothing or costs you money, so adding customers never covers your costs. A higher price or a lower fee changes that.
Why do some providers only work in US dollars?
Lemon Squeezy, Paddle and Polar publish their fixed fee in US dollars only. Rather than guess a pound or euro amount, those presets only work with USD. Pick USD, another provider or Custom fee.

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Ramen Profitability Calculator: Customers to Cover Costs · ZeroRaised