Free calculator
Break-even ratio calculator
See what share of your rental income is already spoken for by operating expenses and the mortgage — and how much cushion is left before a vacancy or surprise repair turns the month negative. The estimate is based on your own numbers.
The short answer
Last updated: July 2026
The break-even ratio (BER) is (operating expenses + debt service) ÷ gross operating income — the share of a rental’s income its bills already consume. Example: $1,100 expenses plus $1,900 debt service on $3,600 monthly income is $3,000 ÷ $3,600 ≈ 83%. Lower means more cushion before vacancy or a surprise repair turns cash flow negative.
After the estimate:
Self-management softwareBreak-even ratio calculator
How much of the income the bills consume.
Enter monthly gross operating income, operating expenses, and debt service to estimate the break-even ratio — the share of income already spoken for before anything goes wrong.
Monthly gross operating income
$
Rent plus other income (parking, laundry, fees) you actually expect to collect in a month.
Monthly operating expenses
$
Taxes, insurance, repairs, management, utilities you pay — everything except the loan.
Monthly debt service
$
Principal and interest on the mortgage. Enter 0 if the property is owned free and clear.
Input-driven result
Your inputs
Formula
Result below
Break-even ratio
83.3%
($1,100 expenses + $1,900 debt service) ÷ $3,600 income.
Monthly cushion
$600
Income left after expenses and debt service — the buffer before break-even.
Estimate based on your inputs. Not a promise of results.
Estimate only. A lower ratio means more of the income survives a vacancy or a surprise repair; lenders commonly discuss break-even ratio when underwriting, but each sets its own standards — this tool doesn't assert a pass/fail threshold.
How it works
How this tool works.
A property can look profitable on an annual pro forma and still be fragile month to month. What decides fragility is how much of each month’s income is already committed before anything goes wrong — the taxes, the insurance, the repairs, and above all the mortgage payment that arrives whether or not the rent does. The break-even ratio puts one number on that: the percentage of gross operating income consumed by operating expenses plus debt service.
Enter your monthly income, operating expenses, and debt service, and the calculator returns the ratio along with the dollar cushion left over. A property at 80% break-even keeps a fifth of its income as buffer; a property at 98% is one bad month from negative. Lenders commonly discuss break-even ratio when underwriting rental loans, though each sets its own standards — this tool computes your number, it doesn’t assert a pass/fail line.
Make the result useful
Break-even-ratio analysis
Gross operating income is recurring income before operating costs and debt.
Operating expenses are recurring costs before financing.
Debt service is scheduled loan payment cost for the same period.
The ratio measures income committed to costs, not a lender approval outcome.
Calculation lens
break-even ratio = (operating expenses + debt service) ÷ gross operating income
Use the output as a documented scenario result, not a guarantee.
Does not include capital projects or future income changes.
Questions landlords ask
Questions about this tool and its limits.
Built by a landlord who's done every one of these jobs by hand.
Aptoria was built by an owner-operator managing a Brooklyn portfolio — the 11pm calls, the awkward rent texts, the April receipt-pile — not by a software team guessing at the problem.
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