break even

Meaning

To reach a point in business or transactions where profits equal expenses. It means you have neither made money nor lost money. It is commonly used in financial forecasting, startup discussions, and project planning.

Examples

• We need to sell at least 500 tickets just to break even on the event.

  We need to sell at least 500 tickets just to break even on the event.

• The company expects to break even by the end of the second quarter.

  The company expects to break even by the end of the second quarter.

• After accounting for marketing costs, we barely broke even on the product launch.

  After accounting for marketing costs, we barely broke even on the product launch.

• If we lower our prices any further, we won't even break even.

  If we lower our prices any further, we won't even break even.

• It took three years of hard work for our small business to finally break even.

  It took three years of hard work for our small business to finally break even.

Common Mistakes

• ✗ We made a break even this month.

  ✓ We broke even this month.

  'Break even' is a verb phrase. Do not use it as a noun with 'make' unless you use the noun form 'breakeven' (e.g., 'reach the breakeven point').

• ✗ The business broke equally yesterday.

  ✓ The business broke even yesterday.

  'Break even' is a fixed idiom; you cannot substitute 'even' with 'equally' or 'same'.

Related Expressions

Practice

• With such high production costs, it will be difficult to ___ on this project.

  💡 Reach a point of no profit and no loss.

  Show answer

  break even

• The startup finally ___ last month after operating at a loss for a year.

  💡 Past tense of break even.

  Show answer

  broke even