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Startup Financial Model
The one place your numbers come together. Enter your cash, revenue, growth, margins, and costs once, and this builds a 12-month projection — then derives your runway, break-even, margins, and a valuation from the same model, all at once. It's the lite version of the model we build for founders raising or borrowing.
Start from a template
Import your numbers (CSV or paste)
Paste or upload your monthly history — one row per month as: revenue, expenses (a leading month label is fine). We'll set your starting revenue, growth, and expenses from it.
→ Your 12-month model
12-month projection
| Month | Revenue | Costs | Net income | Cash |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M1 | $20,000 | $51,000 | -$31,000 | $219,000 |
| M2 | $21,600 | $52,830 | -$31,230 | $187,770 |
| M3 | $23,328 | $54,739 | -$31,411 | $156,359 |
| M4 | $25,194 | $56,731 | -$31,537 | $124,822 |
| M5 | $27,210 | $58,811 | -$31,601 | $93,221 |
| M6 | $29,387 | $60,983 | -$31,597 | $61,625 |
| M7 | $31,737 | $63,254 | -$31,516 | $30,108 |
| M8 | $34,276 | $65,627 | -$31,351 | -$1,242 |
| M9 | $37,019 | $68,110 | -$31,092 | -$32,334 |
| M10 | $39,980 | $70,709 | -$30,729 | -$63,063 |
| M11 | $43,178 | $73,430 | -$30,251 | -$93,314 |
| M12 | $46,633 | $76,280 | -$29,648 | -$122,962 |
What moves cash the most
Month-12 cash when each driver is varied ±20% on its own. The longest bar is your highest-leverage assumption — the one worth getting right.
Cash runs out around month 8
At this burn and growth, you run out of cash in month 8. Investors want 12–18 months after a raise — raise more, grow faster, or cut costs.
Compare scenarios
Save the current inputs as a scenario, then compare best, base, and worst side by side. Saved in this browser.
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A simplified planning model (it ignores taxes, working capital timing, and financing). For a lender- or investor-grade three-statement model, see our financial modeling service.
What is a startup financial model?
A financial model is a forward-looking projection of your business, built from assumptions, that shows how revenue, costs, profit, and cash evolve over time. For a startup it is the backbone of every fundraising and lending conversation: it turns your plan into numbers a stranger can pressure-test. A good model isn't a spreadsheet of hopeful figures — it is a connected system where changing one driver (price, growth, hiring) flows through to the metrics that decide your fate: runway, break-even, and valuation.
How the financial model is built
A good model is driver-based: a handful of assumptions flow into everything else, so the numbers stay consistent. This one projects twelve months from your inputs and reads the key metrics off the same projection.
- Monthly revenue grows at your growth rate each month
- Cost of goods = revenue × (1 − gross margin)
- Net income = revenue − cost of goods − operating expenses
- Cash rolls forward month by month, so the point it hits zero is your runway
- Break-even revenue = operating expenses ÷ gross margin ratio
Why a connected model beats single calculators
Change your growth rate here and your runway, profitability, and valuation all move together — because they share one set of assumptions. That's the whole point of a model. When you want to go deeper on any one piece, use the focused tools: the burn rate calculator, the break-even calculator, or the startup valuation calculator. For the method behind it, see how to build credible financial projections.
What makes financial projections credible?
Investors and lenders don't expect you to predict the future perfectly — they expect defensible assumptions. Credible projections are built bottom-up from drivers you can explain (how many customers, at what price, acquired how), grow at rates your market actually supports rather than hockey-stick fantasies, and reconcile profit with cash so the model shows not just earnings but whether there is money in the bank. Every number should trace back to an assumption you can defend in a meeting.
How many years should a financial model cover?
Three to five years is standard. This tool models the first twelve months in detail, which is where the action is for an early-stage business — the period that determines runway and the next raise. For a full plan, extend to three years of monthly or quarterly detail and annual figures out to year five. Beyond five years, projections become guesswork, and investors read them as directional rather than precise.
Where models lose credibility
Diligence usually breaks a model in the same few places. Revenue built top-down — “we'll capture 1% of a $10B market” — reads as a wish, not a forecast; build it from customers and price instead. Profit and cash get treated as the same thing, when profitable businesses run out of cash all the time, so the cash line matters more than the P&L. Costs are held flat while revenue soars, which no investor believes. And a single hockey-stick line replaces the best-, base-, and worst-case scenarios a serious reader expects to stress-test.
→ Beyond the calculator
Turn this into a model investors and lenders trust
This lite model is a head start. A raise or a loan needs a full three-statement model — income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow — with every driver documented and scenarios built in. We build that for you, and we can start from exactly the assumptions you entered here.
Frequently asked questions
- A financial model turns your assumptions — revenue, growth, margins, and costs — into a forward projection of profit and cash. This tool builds a 12-month model: it projects each month's revenue and expenses, then derives your runway, break-even point, margins, and a rough valuation from the same numbers, so they're always consistent with each other.
- Start from drivers, not guesses: current monthly revenue and its growth rate, gross margin (what's left after the direct cost of delivery), and your fixed operating expenses and how fast they grow. From there, revenue minus cost of goods minus operating expenses gives monthly net income, and running cash forward month by month shows your runway. This calculator does exactly that.
- The single-purpose calculators answer one question each — break-even, burn rate, margins, valuation. This connected model answers them together from one set of assumptions, so changing your growth rate instantly updates runway, profitability, and valuation at once. It's a lite version of the three-statement model our financial-modeling service builds.
- A common target is 12 to 18 months after a raise. If the model shows cash running out sooner, the levers are the same three: grow revenue faster, raise more, or cut operating costs. The model flags the month your cash hits zero so you can plan the next round before it's urgent.
- It's a strong planning tool and a credible starting point, but it's simplified — it doesn't model taxes, the timing of working capital, or financing. Lenders and investors usually want a full three-statement model (income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow) with documented assumptions. That's what our financial modeling service builds, and we can start from the numbers you enter here.