Enter your starting cash balance, monthly revenue, and monthly expenses to calculate your burn rate and cash runway. The Burn Rate Calculator shows how fast your startup is spending capital, your net and gross burn, and exactly how many months of runway you have left before funds run out.
Cash Runway
--
Gross Burn Rate
--
Net Burn Rate
--
Estimated Out-of-Cash Date
--
Monthly Net Cash Flow
--
Burn rate is the speed at which a company spends its cash reserves before generating a positive cash flow. It's typically expressed as a monthly figure and is a critical metric for startups to track, as it shows how long the business can operate before needing additional funding or reaching profitability.
Gross burn rate is your total monthly cash expenditure — every dollar spent on salaries, rent, marketing, and other costs. Net burn rate subtracts your monthly revenue from gross burn, giving you the actual net cash lost each month. Net burn rate is the more meaningful figure for understanding your true runway.
To calculate gross burn rate, add up all your monthly operating expenses. To calculate net burn rate, subtract your monthly revenue from your total monthly expenses. For example, if you spend $50,000/month and earn $15,000/month, your net burn rate is $35,000/month.
Cash runway is the number of months your business can continue operating at its current burn rate before running out of cash. It's calculated by dividing your current cash balance by your net burn rate. A longer runway gives you more time to hit profitability or raise your next funding round.
Burn rate matters because it tells founders and investors how long the business has before it needs more capital. Investors scrutinize burn rate to assess whether a company is spending efficiently and whether their investment will last long enough to produce meaningful results. A high burn rate with low revenue is a warning sign.
A high burn rate means your company is consuming cash quickly relative to your revenue or reserves. This isn't always bad — early-stage startups often burn heavily to accelerate growth — but it does mean you have less time before needing new funding. It's a signal to either increase revenue, cut costs, or plan your next fundraise sooner.
Common ways to reduce burn rate include cutting non-essential operating expenses, renegotiating vendor or lease agreements, reducing headcount or shifting to part-time/contract roles, pausing low-ROI marketing spend, and accelerating revenue generation efforts. Even small reductions in monthly expenses can meaningfully extend your runway.
Most investors and advisors recommend maintaining at least 12–18 months of runway at all times. This gives you enough time to execute your strategy, show meaningful progress, and complete a fundraising process (which can take 3–6 months alone). If your runway drops below 6 months, fundraising or cost-cutting should become your top priority.