Retail store monthly expenses
- Monthly expenses
- $19,254
- Labor with burden
- $12,544
- Break even sales a month
- $48,868.02
- Gross profit a month at these sales
- $43,680
Every figure on this page is worked out from the inputs you enter, by the method stated below it. Footfally publishes no wholesale price, no industry labor ratio and no benchmark rent: the defaults are a worked example to replace with your own numbers, and the footfall is always yours.
The figures above start from a worked example ($19,254). Change any input and the answer updates as you type.
Download the Retail store monthly expenses worked example (CSV)
Retail store monthly expenses are the sum every landlord conversation and every hiring decision comes back to, and most stores carry it in the owner's head rather than on a page. This worksheet adds rent, utilities, wages with employer burden, insurance, software and marketing from what you type, then works the sales the store has to take in a month to cover them at your own gross margin after card fees, because break even is the number the monthly total is really for.
Wages are the largest line and burden is part of them
For most independent stores wages are the biggest monthly expense after rent, and the payroll taxes and benefits on top of them are real money that a list of hourly rates leaves out. The worksheet takes a burden percentage on top of wages, because the right figure depends on your state and what you offer, and prints labor with burden as its own line.
Break even depends on the margin, which is why it moves
The store covers its expenses out of gross profit, not out of sales, so the break even figure is the monthly expenses divided by the gross margin after card fees. A store with a 42% margin needs far less in sales to cover the same rent than a store at 28%, and a price list change moves the break even figure as surely as a rent rise does.
Rent as a share of sales is the landlord conversation
The worksheet prints rent as a percentage of sales because that is the number a lease negotiation turns on. When it drifts up, either sales have fallen or the rent has risen ahead of them, and knowing which before the renewal is worth more than any argument on the day. Use your own takings, not a projection.
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Keeping what you make
The answers are free forever. Pro turns them into the store's own record: your store name on the rota and the price list, no watermark, every week's rota, every priced line and every month's figures saved against the store, and clean exports for the accountant.
- Save a rota, a priced line or a month and reopen it later
- Compare two rotas or two prices side by side
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Retail store monthly expenses: common questions
Where do cost of goods go?
In the margin. The worksheet takes gross margin as a percentage of sales, which is what is left after the cost of the goods, so the cost of goods is already inside that figure. Take the margin from your own price list rather than from a category average.
Should we include our own drawings as wages?
If you take a wage from the store, yes, and it is honest to include it. A store that only breaks even because the owner works for nothing is not breaking even. Whether you also include a return on what you invested is a question for your accountant rather than for this page.
Does this save the monthly sheet anywhere?
Not on its own. The worksheet computes in your browser and sends nothing anywhere. Footfally Pro saves each month's figures against the store, so the year builds up as twelve sheets you can compare and export for the accountant.