# Runway & Burn Rate Calculator

- **URL:** https://codeasystem.com/calculators/business/runway-burn-rate-calculator/
- **Category:** business
- **Description:** Calculate net monthly burn from revenue versus expenses and translate your cash balance into months of runway.
- **Primary output:** Runway: 10 months

## Inputs
- Cash balance today (name: `cash`, type: number, prefix: $, example: 250000)
- Monthly revenue (name: `revenue`, type: number, prefix: $, example: 60000)
- Monthly expenses (name: `expenses`, type: number, prefix: $, example: 85000)

## Outputs
- Runway: 10 months
- Net monthly burn: $25,000.00
- Cash balance: $250,000.00
- Projected depletion date: 10 months from today

## Formula / methodology
```
Net burn = Monthly expenses − Monthly revenue
Runway (months) = Cash balance / Net burn
```

Net burn is the cash the business loses each month after revenue covers what it can. Dividing the bank balance by that loss yields runway; how many months survive at the current pace. When revenue meets or exceeds expenses, burn disappears and the calculator reports cash-flow positive instead of pretending infinity is a plan.

## Assumptions & limitations
- Revenue and expenses are averaged and held flat for the projection.
- Accrual timing differences (invoices, annual prepayments) are ignored.
- Existing cash includes everything freely accessible, not credit lines.

## How to use
1. **Enter today’s cash**; Bank balances plus anything liquidable within days; not undrawn credit facilities.
2. **Add monthly revenue and expenses**; Use trailing-average monthly figures rather than best-case forecasts.
3. **Read burn and runway**; Under ~6 months triggers most boards’ urgency threshold; plan fundraising or cuts well ahead.

## Example
A company holding $250,000 while burning $25,000 a month ($85k expenses minus $60k revenue) has 10 months of runway.

Result for these inputs:

```
Runway: 10 months
```

## About this calculator
### Why runway rules startup calendars

Fundraising realistically consumes 3–6 months from prep to wired funds. A company discovering it has 5 months of runway is effectively already late: investors price urgency, and desperate rounds dilute founders severely. Recompute runway monthly; treat the number as a countdown clock, not trivia.

### Levers that change the clock

- Cutting expenses extends runway linearly; but rarely painlessly.
- Raising revenue helps doubly: it adds cash now and reduces future burn.
- Hiring freezes, payment-term tightening and annual-prepaid plans all bend the curve.

Growth-stage companies sometimes choose to increase burn deliberately; the goal is not minimal burn but burn whose growth return justifies the shortened clock.

## FAQs
### Is negative burn bad?

The opposite; it means the business is self-funding. The calculator flags cash-flow positive status rather than computing meaningless infinite runway.

### Gross burn vs net burn?

Gross burn is total expenses alone; net burn nets off revenue. Investors usually mean net, but knowing gross matters for worst-case scenarios where revenue vanishes.

### How much runway should I keep?

Common guidance: 12–18 months post-fundraise so the next round starts from strength, and a personal red line around 6 months for triggering cuts.

## Related calculators
- [MRR Calculator](https://codeasystem.com/calculators/business/mrr-calculator/)
- [Emergency Fund Calculator](https://codeasystem.com/calculators/finance/emergency-fund-calculator/)
- [Savings Goal Calculator](https://codeasystem.com/calculators/finance/savings-goal-calculator/)

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Last updated: 2026-08-23 · Version: 1.0.0 · [HTML version](https://codeasystem.com/calculators/business/runway-burn-rate-calculator/)