Profit &
Loss
Calculator
Enter your revenue and expenses — get a complete P&L statement with gross profit, net profit, and margin percentages. Plain-English explanations included.
What is a Profit & Loss statement?
A P&L (also called an income statement) summarises your revenue and expenses over a period — a month, quarter, or year — to show whether your business made or lost money. It has three key lines: revenue, cost of goods sold, and operating expenses. The difference is your net profit or loss.
P&Ls are the first document investors, lenders, and accountants ask for because they reveal the health of your business model more clearly than a bank balance alone.
What's a good net profit margin?
- SaaS / software: 10–25% typical; 30%+ excellent
- Consulting / freelance: 20–40% is achievable
- E-commerce: 10–20% depending on category
- Retail: 2–5% typical; 10%+ excellent
- Restaurants: 3–9%; thin margins are the norm
- Construction: 2–6% typical; 10%+ excellent
Below 5% net margin means a single bad month can push you into loss. Above 20% gives meaningful reinvestment capacity.
COGS vs operating expenses — what's the difference?
COGS are costs that scale directly with sales — materials, direct labour, packaging, shipping. If you sell nothing, COGS is zero. Operating expenses are overhead that exists regardless of sales — rent, salaries, software, marketing budgets.
Separating them reveals your gross margin, which shows how efficiently you produce what you sell. A healthy gross margin that disappears at the net level means overhead is the problem — not pricing.
How often should you run a P&L?
Monthly at minimum — you need to catch margin compression, cost creep, and revenue shortfalls before they become crises. Quarterly P&Ls are standard for investor reporting. Annual P&Ls are required for tax purposes.
The businesses that stay healthy are the ones reviewing their numbers every month, not just at year end when it's too late to change anything.