Your costs
Fees and short-pays withheld from plan payments.
Share of sales that need lenses remade.
Optician time to redo and re-fit.
Average cost of after-sale visits.
Employer taxes, workers' comp, paid breaks.
Rent, utilities, base staffing, software, insurance, doctor lease. Not owner pay.
After goods, remakes, fees and optician time.
Your sale types
One row per kind of sale, such as cash single vision or a plan progressive. Enter the frame and lens cost you pay, not the retail price. Use 0 for plan pays on a cash sale. Leave a row empty to skip it.
| Sale type | Patient pays $ | Plan pays $ | Frame cost $ | Lens lab $ | Coatings $ | Optician min | Sales/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Result
Questions people ask
What is a good margin on eyeglasses?
Optical retail is one of the higher-margin parts of an eye care practice, but the average hides a wide spread. A cash sale with a marked-up frame can earn several times what a sale on a low-reimbursement vision plan earns. This tool subtracts the frame, lenses, coatings, a remake allowance, card and plan fees, free adjustments and the optician's time, then shows what each kind of sale really earns so you can see where the margin is made.
How do vision plans change the math?
A plan pays a fixed amount toward the frame and lenses and often withholds a claim fee, while the patient pays the rest. Enter what the plan pays and what the patient pays as separate numbers. The tool applies the card fee only to the patient's payment and the claim fee only to the plan's, and gives you the patient price that reaches your target margin if the plan payment is fixed.
How much does a remake cost?
A remake costs the lens lab charge and coatings again plus the optician's time to re-order, verify and re-fit. Multiply by how often it happens. Even a six percent remake rate quietly takes a few dollars from every sale, and the scenario table shows what three more points would cost across a month.
How many sales a month do I need to cover fixed costs?
Divide monthly fixed costs (rent, utilities, base staffing, software, doctor lease) by the average contribution per sale at your current mix of cash and plan sales. The result is only as good as that mix, so rerun it if plans change what they pay or you add a premium frame line.
Not decided
What your market will pay, which vision plans to stay in network with, your contracted rates, frame-board and lab terms, insurance and billing compliance, the doctor's compensation, equipment and financing, and how to treat any of this for tax or accounting. Take costs from invoices, take plan payments from your remittances, and talk to your accountant about the books.
Related tools: the appointment no-show cost calculator, the card processing fee audit the dental PPO write-off calculator the hearing aid dispensing margin calculator and the independent pharmacy prescription margin calculator.