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SaaS Expense Calculator

This SaaS Expense Calculator totals recurring and one-time operating expenses across a selected period. It separates major cost groups and calculates the monthly average, making it easier to build a lightweight operating budget. Use it for planning infrastructure, payroll, sales and marketing, software subscriptions, and other overhead. The result is a simple expense scenario and does not determine accounting classification or tax treatment.

Inputs

USD
USD
USD
USD
USD
months
Result
—
Total expenses
Monthly recurring expense—
Recurring expense for period—
Average expense per month—
Payroll share of recurring expense—

1. Enter monthly people costs
Include salaries, wages, benefits, employer costs, and regular contractor spending.

2. Add infrastructure
Enter hosting, databases, monitoring, API, and other technical operating costs.

3. Enter commercial spending
Add recurring sales and marketing expense for the same monthly basis.

4. Capture other and one-time costs
Separate recurring overhead from non-recurring setup, legal, equipment, or project spending.

5. Choose the budget period
Enter the number of months covered by the scenario.

6. Review the cost mix
Use the totals and payroll share to compare scenarios and identify major drivers.

Monthly recurring expense = Payroll + Infrastructure + Sales and marketing + Other monthly expense
Total expense = Monthly recurring expense × Months + One-time expense

All recurring inputs must use the same monthly basis. The calculator does not include depreciation, capitalization, or accrual adjustments.

What the result means

Use the main result together with the supporting metrics to compare scenarios and identify the assumptions with the largest effect.

All recurring inputs must use the same monthly basis. The calculator does not include depreciation, capitalization, or accrual adjustments.

Given
Given: $80,000 payroll, $12,000 infrastructure, $25,000 sales and marketing, $10,000 other monthly expense, $50,000 one-time expense, and 12 months.

Calculation
Monthly recurring expense = $80,000 + $12,000 + $25,000 + $10,000 = $127,000. Period recurring expense = $127,000 × 12 = $1,524,000. Total = $1,524,000 + $50,000 = $1,574,000.

Result
The average monthly expense including the one-time item is $131,166.67.

Should founder salaries be included?

Include them when they are real cash expenses or when you want a fully loaded operating plan. Keep the treatment consistent across scenarios.

Where do payment processing fees belong?

They can be placed in other monthly expense, or modeled separately as a variable cost when transaction volume changes materially.

Can I use quarterly values?

Convert all recurring amounts to monthly figures before entering them, because the period multiplier is in months.

Why separate one-time costs?

One-time costs affect total cash needs but do not represent the recurring monthly run rate.

Is this the same as cash burn?

Not exactly. Burn also depends on cash inflows and working-capital timing, while this calculator totals expenses only.