Burn Rate & Runway Planner
Net burn, runway with your hiring plan, whether you are default alive, and the cuts needed to buy 6 more months.
Example scenario—not a forecast or verified benchmark. Enable JavaScript to edit inputs, view charts, save locally and export your analysis.
Example inputs
- Cash in the bank
- 1,200,000
- Current monthly revenue
- 90,000
- Monthly revenue growth
- 4
- Gross margin
- 70
- Monthly operating expenses (payroll, rent, tools, marketing)
- 160,000
- Hiring plan
- [{"role":"Account executive","month":2,"monthlyCost":12000},{"role":"Senior engineer","month":3,"monthlyCost":17000},{"role":"Customer success manager","month":6,"monthlyCost":9000}]
- Extra runway you want to buy
- 6
Example results
10.6 months of runway at $97K/month net burn (default dead); cutting $33K/month buys 6 more months.
- Runway with hiring plan
- 10.6 mo
- Net burn (current)
- $97,000
- Default alive?
- No
- Gross burn (current)
- $187,000
- Runway without new hires
- 16.4 mo
- Monthly cut to add 6 months
- $33,258
- Burn added by hiring plan
- $38,000
What stands out
Runway with hiring plan: 10.6 months
Net burn today is $97K/month. Without the planned hires runway would be 16.4 months.
Default dead on the current plan
At 4% monthly growth you run out of cash before reaching break-even. You need to raise, cut, or grow faster.
Hiring plan adds $38K/month of burn
3 planned hires shorten runway by 5.7 months. Each hire needs to pay back through growth.
Buying 6 more months takes $33K/month of cuts
That is 17% of operating spend including planned hires.
Next actions
- Start fundraising now: rounds commonly take 4–6 months, so begin with at least 9–12 months of runway left. You have 10.6 months.
- Gate the hiring plan on milestones: delay Customer success manager until monthly revenue reaches $113K.
- Pre-plan a 17% cut list ($33K/month) to trigger if growth stalls for two consecutive months.
Model assumptions & limitations
- Revenue compounds at 4% per month with a constant 70% gross margin; operating expenses stay flat apart from planned hires.
- Projection horizon is 60 months; no new funding, debt or one-off costs are included.
- Default alive = reaching monthly cash-flow break-even before cash runs out on the current plan.
- Fundraising timeline of 4–6 months is a common rule of thumb, not a guarantee.