A business that loses money on every sale is a hobby. In this activity, students sort their costs into two kinds, set a price, and find out how many sales it takes before the business stops losing money. The math stays simple (addition, subtraction, multiplication, one division), but the ideas are the same ones every business owner uses.
| STARTUP COSTS (ONE TIME) | PER-ITEM COSTS (EACH FAMILY PACK) |
|---|---|
| Label printer: $100 QR code website for one year: $24 Total: $124 | 25 iron-on labels: $2.50 Envelope and printed instructions: $1.00 Total: $3.50 |
| PRICE AND WHY | PROFIT AND BREAK-EVEN |
| $10 per family pack. Store-bought name labels cost $12–$20, and 31 parents pre-ordered at $10. | $10 − $3.50 = $6.50 profit per pack. $124 ÷ $6.50 = 19.1, so 20 packs to break even. |
What happens to break-even if the price drops to $8? If a supplier raises labels to $4? Have students change one number and explain the effect. Personal finance classes can connect this to budgeting: break-even is a budget for a business.
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Create a T-chart that shows whether your business can make money.
Create an assignment from the Costs, Price, and Profit template so each student or team starts with the four labeled quadrants.
Students look up prices online for every startup and per-item cost and note the source, as TagBack did for its $100 label printer.
Students fill the bottom quadrants: price minus per-item cost for profit, then startup costs divided by profit per item, rounded up.
Open submissions from your teacher dashboard, check each calculation and source, and return storyboards that need a corrected number.
Project a few storyboards and change one number together to show how price and costs move the break-even point.
Score each of the four quadrants 0-2 points. A 2 for startup and per-item costs means every cost has a real price and a source. A 2 for price means three reasons, as in TagBack's $10 pack: cost, store labels at $12-$20, and 31 pre-orders. A 2 for profit means correct math, including rounding 19.1 up to 20 packs.
Allow 45-60 minutes. Most of the time goes to researching real prices online, not the math. To save time, let students look up costs for homework, or give middle schoolers a short price list to choose from. Students who finish early can test a second price and compare break-even points, such as TagBack at $8 versus $10.
In grades 6-8, keep to one product and simple prices, and let students use calculators for break-even. In grades 9-12, add a monthly cost such as TagBack's $24 website spread over twelve months, ask for profit margin as a percentage ($6.50 / $10 = 65%), and have students graph total cost against total revenue to show the break-even point.
Pre-teach four terms with images: startup cost (a printer), per-item cost (a pack of labels), profit, and break-even. Students can label the images in each quadrant with the word and its home-language translation. Provide the two formulas as sentence frames, such as "Each pack costs ___ to make, so we earn ___ on each sale."
Ask "what if" questions that change one number. If TagBack drops its price to $8, break-even rises from 20 to 28 packs. If the 25 labels cost $4 instead of $2.50, profit falls to $5 and break-even rises to 25 packs. Then ask: would Jordan rather sell fewer packs at a higher price or more at a lower one? Students defend their answer with numbers.