Runway is the single number investors ask about first, and the one that should drive most of your decisions. The Burn Rate & Runway calculator works it out from three inputs and then lets you test changes before you commit to them.
The three numbers you need
- Current cash balance — what's actually in the bank today, not including money you've been promised.
- Monthly revenue — cash coming in during a typical month. Enter
0if you're pre-revenue; that's a real answer, not a blank. - Monthly expenses — everything going out: payroll, contractors, software, rent, ads.
You can type shorthand in any money field: 50k becomes 50,000 and 1.2m becomes 1,200,000.
What it calculates
Net burn rate is expenses minus revenue — how much cash you lose in a month. If revenue is higher than expenses, you're profitable and your runway is effectively infinite.
Runway is your cash balance divided by net burn: how many months until the account hits zero at today's rate.
Zero cash date is that same figure on a calendar, which tends to feel a lot more urgent than "7.4 months".
How to read your runway
- Under 6 months — most investors expect a raise to already be underway. Fundraising typically takes three to six months, so this is the point where runway becomes the constraint on everything else.
- 6 to 12 months — a good window to open conversations. You have enough time to walk away from a bad term sheet.
- Over 12 months — comfortable. Focus on growth; you're raising from strength rather than necessity.
Scenario modeling
The second card models changes without touching your real numbers:
- New monthly hires and average monthly cost per hire — the fastest way to see what a hiring plan costs you in months of life. Use fully-loaded cost (salary plus taxes, benefits, and tooling), not just salary.
- Additional monthly revenue — a new contract or price change.
- Additional monthly expenses — a new tool, office, or ad budget.
The Runway Analysis panel shows your current position and the modeled one side by side, so you can see exactly how many months a decision costs.
Saving and exporting
Everything saves automatically as you type — the header shows when. Use Export CSV to pull both scenarios into a spreadsheet to share with a co-founder, board member, or accountant.
Trying it out first
If you're not ready to enter real numbers, click Show me an example to load a sample company. It's clearly labelled while it's loaded, and one click clears it.