How to Calculate Your Runway as a Solo Founder

AlqEdge · October 2026 · 5 min read

Runway is the answer to one question: how many months can I keep going before I run out of cash?

For a solo founder it's the single most important number you track. Not revenue. Not users. Runway. Because if it hits zero, none of the other numbers matter.

Here's how to calculate it, what the 2026 data says, and the mistakes that quietly kill one-person companies.

The formula (it's simpler than you think)

Runway = Cash on hand ÷ Monthly net burn

That's it. Two numbers:

Cash on hand — everything in every bank account. Not what you think you have. What the bank says.
Monthly net burn — what you spend each month minus what you earn. If you earn more than you spend, your burn is negative and runway is infinite. Most solo founders aren't there yet.

Example: $48,000 in the bank, $4,000 monthly burn → 12 months of runway.

What the 2026 benchmarks say

Median SaaS runway: 13.1 months (Grid 2025–26, 130+ companies)
25th percentile: 4.3 months — a quarter of companies have less than 5 months
75th percentile: 20.9 months

So if you're a solo founder with 4 months of runway, you're not an outlier — you're in the bottom quarter of a very normal distribution. The problem isn't having 4 months. The problem is not knowing.

Why most solo founders get it wrong

Three mistakes I see over and over:

Counting revenue as if it were already banked. Deals in the pipeline aren't cash. Use what's actually in the account.
Ignoring one-time costs. Software renewals, hardware, contractor invoices — they hit once a year but feel like a surprise every time. Average them into monthly burn.
Only running the "base case." Growth could stall. A client could churn. Run three numbers: best case, base case, and a "nothing changes" case. The last one is what actually matters for survival.

What to do with the number

Rule of thumb from the data: if your runway is under 9 months, that's your trigger to cut burn or raise revenue — not a panic, just a decision point. 2026 median is 13.1 months, so 9 months is already below average; below 6 months and you're in "every decision matters" territory.

The fix is almost always the same: cut the fixed costs that don't produce revenue, raise prices on the thing that already sells, or start a fundraising conversation earlier than feels comfortable.

Want the 5-minute version?

If you want this done without a spreadsheet, the Virtual CFO skill runs the calculation (plus base/bull/bear scenarios and a hiring plan) from your numbers in one command. There's a real demo report you can look at first — it's an actual run, not a screenshot.