Burn Rate & Runway Visualizer
Takes your current cash balance and monthly spending, and shows exactly how many months of runway remain before the account hits zero — as a number, and as a visual line showing the trajectory, which tends to land differently than the number alone.
Why the visual matters here: “6 months of runway” reads very differently as a sentence than as a line heading toward zero on a chart, especially once you start adjusting spending or revenue assumptions and watch the line shift in real time — the kind of thing that’s easy to underestimate the urgency of when it’s just a static number in a spreadsheet cell.
How to use it
- Enter current cash balance.
- Enter monthly expenses (burn rate) — either a flat number or itemized by category for more detail.
- Optionally add expected monthly revenue to calculate net burn rather than gross spending.
- The tool projects the balance forward month by month and shows the runway in months, plus the date it’s projected to run out.
- Adjust any input to see the runway update live — useful for testing “what if we cut spending by X” scenarios.
Common situations this solves
- Figuring out exactly how many months a business has before cash runs out
- Testing how much a spending cut or revenue increase would extend runway
- Preparing a clear runway figure to share with a co-founder, investor, or advisor
- Deciding when a fundraising conversation needs to start, based on runway remaining
- Comparing gross burn (spending alone) against net burn (spending minus incoming revenue)
FAQ
What’s the difference between gross burn and net burn?
Gross burn is total monthly spending with no revenue factored in; net burn subtracts any incoming revenue from that spending figure, giving a more accurate (and often longer) runway if the business already has some revenue coming in.
How is runway calculated exactly?
Current cash balance divided by monthly net burn rate gives the number of months remaining at the current spending pace — the tool also projects this as a date, not just a month count.
Should I use average spending or my most recent month?
Recent months are usually more accurate for near-term planning, since spending often changes over time; if your spending varies a lot month to month, an average across the last 3-6 months tends to give a steadier, less noisy projection than a single month.
Does this account for seasonal or one-time expenses?
Not automatically — if you know a large one-time expense is coming, factor it into your monthly figure manually for that period, since the default projection assumes a consistent burn rate going forward.
Can I model multiple scenarios, like “what if we raise $X” or “what if we cut spending by Y%”?
Yes, adjusting any input (cash balance, burn rate, revenue) recalculates the projection live, so you can compare different scenarios side by side without re-entering everything from scratch.