How do you calculate runway for an agency that is still growing?

The startup formula, cash divided by burn, is wrong for an agency because it assumes burn is flat. It is not. Every client you sign adds gross profit that offsets fixed burn, so your real monthly cash loss shrinks month over month. This calculator simulates that instead of dividing. Each month it adds your net new clients at your average price, multiplies the resulting MRR by your gross margin to get gross profit, subtracts that from fixed burn to get net burn, and draws the difference from cash. Runway is the last month your balance stays above zero. That is usually longer than the naive calculation says, and the gap is the reason so many operators quit a few months before break-even.

What counts as fixed burn for an AI voice agency?

Costs that do not move when you add or lose a client. Your own draw is the big one and most operators leave it out, which makes the whole model lie. Then contractors and VAs on retainer, your platform subscription, CRM, automation tools, telephony line rental, ad spend, and any software you pay for monthly whether or not a client is using it. What does not belong here is variable delivery cost: voice minutes, per-call telephony, knowledge base charges. Those scale with usage, so they belong in gross margin instead. If you put variable costs in fixed burn you will double count them and your runway will read shorter than it really is.

What gross margin should an AI voice agency actually have?

If you charge a client $2,000 a month and they use 800 minutes, your delivery cost on a single platform is roughly the platform plan plus overage, which puts most agencies at 80% or better. Margins fall apart when the stack is fragmented. A voice API, a separate CRM, an automation layer, a billing tool, telephony, and a developer to hold it together will each take a cut, and the developer takes the largest one because it is priced in hours rather than dollars per minute. Operators who run five to seven tools commonly land near 55% to 65% without realizing it, because no single invoice shows the total. If you are unsure, run our true cost per minute calculator first and bring that number back here.

Why does margin move runway more than new clients do?

Because margin applies to revenue you already have. A five point margin improvement on $10,000 of existing MRR is $500 a month that arrives immediately, with no sales cycle, no onboarding, and no delivery risk. Landing a new $2,000 client at 60% margin also adds about $1,200, but it takes weeks to close, hours to build, and it can churn. Both help. The difference is speed and certainty. In practice the operators who extend runway fastest do it by consolidating the stack and repricing existing clients, then use the extra months to sell. Selling your way out of a margin problem works, it is just the slowest available route and the one most likely to fail under pressure.

My break-even month is past 36. What do I change first?

Three levers, in order of speed. First, margin, because it is immediate and does not require anyone else to say yes. Consolidate tools, kill subscriptions you are not using, and check what you are actually paying per minute across every invoice. Second, price. Most voice agencies underprice, and moving new clients from $1,500 to $2,000 changes the client count you need to cover burn by a full step. Third, fixed burn. Cutting your own draw is the honest short term move and it is usually better than cutting the ad spend that produces the clients. Adding more net new clients is the fourth lever, not the first, because it is the slowest to take effect.

Is the lowest cash point more important than the runway number?

Yes, and it is the number most operators never calculate. If you are growing, your cash balance falls, bottoms out, then recovers as gross profit passes fixed burn. The trough is the moment of maximum risk: one late invoice, one churned client, or one unexpected build cost at that point ends the business even though the model said you would be fine. The calculator surfaces the trough and the month it lands in so you can plan around it, whether that means holding a reserve, delaying a hire, or timing a price increase to land before it. Runway tells you when you run out. The trough tells you when you are fragile.

free tool

AI voice agency runway calculator.

How many months of cash do you have, and which month does the agency stop needing it? Enter your real numbers and get runway, break-even month, and the cash trough that sits between them.

/ cash on handEverything you could actually spend on the business today./ monthly fixed burnYour pay, contractors, platform fees, tools, ads. Costs that do not move with client count./ current MRR/ gross margin %Revenue minus the cost of delivering it: minutes, telephony, platform. Agencies on a single platform typically sit at 80%+./ net new clients per monthNet, so signings minus churn. Use 0.5 if you land one every two months./ average client price

/ result

Runway at today's burn and growth

Profitable today

Gross profit already covers fixed burn. You are funding growth out of the business, not out of savings.

Break-even month

Now

Cash at break-even

$18,000

Clients to cover burn

3

Net new still needed

0

Cash trajectory

month 36.0 clients, $12,000 MRR$29,400

month 69.0 clients, $18,000 MRR$55,200

month 1215.0 clients, $30,000 MRR$150,000

Margin is the fastest lever here. At 80% you keep $4,800 of your current $6,000 MRR. Every 5 points of margin you recover from tool sprawl is $300 a month of runway you did not have to sell for.

Book a 20-min walkthrough to cut this number, by moving the stack onto one platform so more of every client payment survives to gross profit. Want the full breakdown for your agency? Book 20 min and bring these inputs.

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how it works

Runway is a simulation, not a division.

Most runway calculators divide cash by burn and hand you a number. That works for a company with no revenue. It is badly wrong for an agency, because every client you sign permanently reduces the amount of cash you lose each month. Your burn is not a line, it is a curve bending toward zero, and the naive formula ignores the bend entirely. Operators who use it consistently underestimate their runway by several months, and several months is often the whole difference between quitting and compounding.

This calculator runs a 36 month simulation instead. Each month it adds your net new clients at your average price, converts the new MRR into gross profit at your margin, and subtracts that gross profit from your fixed burn. What is left is your true net burn for that month, and it comes out of cash. Runway is the last month your balance is still positive. Break-even is the first month gross profit covers fixed burn, at which point the business funds itself and cash starts climbing again.

The output that usually surprises people is the trough: the lowest your cash balance goes before it recovers. That point, not the starting balance, is where agencies die. It is also where margin does its most useful work. Gross margin applies to revenue you already have, so recovering five points from a fragmented stack lifts the entire curve immediately, with no sales cycle attached. That is why the fastest way to buy runway is almost never to sell harder. It is to stop leaking margin across five to seven tools that each take a cut on the way to your bank account.

Hermes replaces that stack with one platform under your own brand, from $149 a month on Starter with 300 included minutes, $399 on Business with 1,000, and $699 on Agency with 2,000. Overage is a flat $0.24 per minute so your delivery cost stays a number you can predict rather than five invoices you reconcile after the fact.

frequently asked

Common questions.

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AI voice agency runway calculator.

Runway is a simulation, not a division.

Common questions.

Run your agency on Hermes.

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