Play area break-even calculator: visits per day to cover your costs

The formula

variable cost per visit    = variable cost per child-hour x session length (hours)
contribution per visit     = session price - variable cost per visit
break-even visits / month  = fixed costs per month / contribution per visit   (rounded up to whole visits)
break-even visits / day    = break-even visits per month / days open per month   (rounded up to whole visits)
maximum visits / day       = children at once x sessions per day
utilisation needed         = break-even visits per day / maximum visits per day

What does break-even mean for a play area?

Break-even is the number of child visits in a period at which the money left over from each visit, after the costs that visit itself causes, exactly covers the costs you pay regardless. Below it you lose money on the month; above it every extra visit is mostly profit. The unit is the child visit, not the family and not the transaction, because that is what your capacity is counted in and what your timers count.

Two numbers do the work. Fixed costs are what you pay whether or not anyone comes: rent, salaries, utilities, insurance, subscriptions. Contribution per visit is the price of one session minus what that one session costs you in consumables, wristband, cleaning and anything else that rises with each child. Divide the first by the second and you have the visits you need.

Where do the input numbers come from?

• Fixed costs come from your profit and loss. Add every line that does not move with visits. If a cost is partly fixed, such as staff who are rostered whether or not it is busy, treat it as fixed here; the staff cost calculator works out what those rostered hours come to.
• Variable cost per child-hour is the hardest one, and worth a morning with your receipts. Take a month of consumables, wristbands, cleaning materials and any included snack, and divide by the child-hours you sold in the same month. Small is normal; zero is not.
• Price is your list price for a standard session. Keep costs and price on the same basis, both including VAT or both excluding it. Your VAT rate is whatever your venue has configured; this page does not assume one, and the UAE VAT guide covers which basis to keep them on here.
• Children at once is your capacity, and it comes from your regulator, insurer or fire officer, never from a calculator. The capacity management guide covers how to set and manage it.
• Sessions per day is how many full turns of the floor fit into an opening day. The capacity planner works it out from opening hours, session length and changeover time.

How should you read the result?

The headline is break-even visits per day, but the more useful line is the share of the floor that must fill. It tells you what average utilisation your price needs, across quiet Tuesdays as well as full Saturdays. Compare it with your own occupancy, which PlayAreaOS reads live off the timer board against your capacity. When the share it demands is higher than the one you actually fill, that gap is the conversation: price, session length, cost per child-hour, opening hours.

Run it twice. Once for a weekday and once for a weekend, with the days and sessions each really has, and the two answers will usually be far apart. A weekend that carries the week is normal; a weekday that never reaches break-even is a reason to look at off-peak pricing, which the session pricing guide works through.

What does this calculator leave out?

Deliberately, a lot. It counts only session revenue, so parties, café, passes and retail are not in it; the revenue per visitor calculator shows how much those add per visit, and a venue with a strong café breaks even on fewer play visits than this page says. It treats the month as an average, so seasonality is yours to layer on. And it treats a multi-visit pass as if each visit were paid at the session price, which overstates revenue if passes are discounted. It is a starting point for a conversation with your own numbers, not a forecast.