Gusflow / Free restaurant resources

Restaurant promotion break-even calculator

How many extra orders must a restaurant discount bring in? Compare the contribution you give up on existing orders with what each new discounted order contributes. Free to use, no signup required.

Use one campaign period and the same currency throughout. Enter order subtotals before tax and tips. This model covers merchant-funded dollar discounts, with commission charged after discount. All calculations run in your browser.

Your promotion assumptions

Original order subtotal (currency): 30. Average order before discount, tax and tips.

Variable cost per order (currency): 12. Food, packaging and incremental labor; do not include commission again.

Commission rate (%): 25. Use your actual rate; enter 0 for a direct sale with no percentage fee.

Discount funded by your restaurant (currency): 6. Dollar amount per order. For 20% off a $30 order, enter 6.

Extra marketing fee per promo order (currency): 0. Only fees incurred on discounted orders, beyond commission.

Orders expected without promotion (orders): 100. Baseline orders for the same campaign period.

Existing orders that will use the deal (%): 100. These customers would have ordered anyway; their discount is a real cost.

Fixed campaign cost (currency): 0. Additional setup, advertising or labor costs for the period; do not double-count per-order fees.

Expected extra promotional orders (orders): 75. Your scenario assumption, not total orders or a forecast from Gusflow.

Worked example

Illustrative example: a $30 order with $12 variable cost and 25% commission contributes $10.50 before a promotion. A $6 merchant-funded discount leaves $6 contribution. If all 100 existing orders use it, you give up $450. With no extra fees, 75 additional orders at $6 contribution recover that $450: 175 total orders, or a 75% increase. This preserves contribution; it does not predict demand or prove net profit.

How the promotion break-even calculation works

Baseline contribution per order = original subtotal × (1 − commission rate) − variable cost. Promotional contribution per order = (original subtotal − merchant-funded discount) × (1 − commission rate) − variable cost − promotional order fee.

Existing-order loss = baseline orders × share using the deal × (baseline contribution − promotional contribution). Required additional orders = (existing-order loss + fixed campaign cost) ÷ promotional contribution, rounded up to a whole order. If promotional contribution is zero or negative, extra orders cannot cover a positive loss.

At your expected volume, contribution change = additional orders × promotional contribution − existing-order loss − fixed campaign cost. This is compared with running no promotion over the same period.

What a discount costs when customers would buy anyway

Not every discounted order is an additional sale. Existing customers who redeem the deal reduce contribution even when the campaign attracts nobody new. Set their participation percentage using your own records or compare several assumptions. This percentage represents an expected share, so the estimated number of existing redemptions may be fractional.

Keep food and packaging costs in dollars. Selling the same meal at a lower price does not make its ingredients cheaper. All extra orders in this model use the deal, and their original ticket size and variable costs match the baseline.

Commission, fees and limits

The model applies commission to the subtotal after the merchant-funded discount. DoorDash’s US Promotions page describes this basis and separate marketing fees. Confirm the applicable rules on your actual statement before using the result for another channel.

DoorDash Marketplace commission includes payment processing according to its US pricing page. Do not add that charge twice. Pass-through taxes and tips are excluded here; this tool does not calculate tax or settlement payouts.

Contribution is the amount left after the costs entered, before any remaining rent, salaried labor, overhead and tax. It is not net profit. Co-funded discounts, buy-one-get-one deals, changing order sizes, displaced full-price demand and future repeat visits require a different model.

Can a promotion with negative contribution break even?

If each promotional order contributes zero or less and there is a campaign loss to recover, adding more such orders will not recover it. Reduce the discount or costs, revise the offer, or assess the broader economics separately.

When there is no initial loss to recover, the threshold is zero additional orders. If promotional contribution is negative, accepting more promotional orders still makes the result worse. A zero or negative baseline also needs attention: matching it does not establish profitability.

Sources and assumptions

Sources checked 2026-09-20. Use the terms that apply to your restaurant.

• DoorDash US Promotions: discount costs, commission basis and marketing fees
• DoorDash US pricing: Marketplace commission and included payment processing

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