How do you figure out your break even point and cost etc. when all your labor and time will be up front on the product you will be selling?

sounds pretty hard until you have some months into the product....and have the time to see if the market is going to want it.......if they dont want it your costs will be out of line..if they want it and are buying it then you can do the math and see how you are doing...

maybe a better question is ; will i make money when i sell 20,000 a month or year or whatever...
if you have to take money out of your product or service the first year you are asking a lot...

My understanding is that when working this out, until you have some historic data (as mentioned above) you pretty much have to make some assumptions. You need to either ask yourself how many items you can sell per month, or how much in monetary terms can I move each month... bearing in mind you’ll have slow months to start with, etc.

You then need to work out your costs... add then apportion this across your goods... for example if you have costs of 10,000 per month, and you believe you can sell 5,000 items then your apportioned overhead would be 10,000 / 5,000 or $2,00 add to this the cost of the product and you have your break-even price... and you’ve already set your break even sale figures of 5,000 units.

The above is rather simplified... when I used to regularly work such things out; I used to apportion 33% for unexpected quiet periods, damage goods, etc... the more you work out your costs, potential costs, etc... the better you can manage them within your cost structure... and don’t forget that once you have your break even price you then need to add in your profit.

Hope this helps.