What Is Burn Rate Tracking? Protect Your Runway
Burn rate tracking is one of the most critical financial disciplines every startup founder must master. It measures how quickly your company is spending money — and how much time you have before cash runs out. In other words, your burn rate determines the strength of your runway, your ability to survive market fluctuations, and your capacity to plan future growth or fundraising activities.
A startup can have a great product, a strong team, and growing user numbers, but if it doesn’t understand its burn rate, it risks running out of cash unexpectedly. Burn rate tracking is your early-warning system — a real-time dashboard that helps you make smart decisions before problems become emergencies.
Why Burn Rate Matters
Investors, advisors, and CFOs all rely on burn rate because it tells the truth about a startup’s sustainability. No matter how exciting the vision is, cash determines survival. When founders know exactly how fast they’re spending, they can:
• Adjust budgets before costs spiral
• Protect runway during uncertain periods
• Determine when to raise funding
• Model different growth scenarios
• Make hiring decisions confidently
• Avoid emergency bridge rounds or fire-drill fundraising
Burn rate isn’t just a financial metric — it’s a decision-making compass.
Types of Burn Rate: Gross vs. Net
There are two kinds of burn rate every founder should track:
• Gross Burn Rate: Total monthly expenses. This includes salaries, software, rent, marketing, and operational costs.
• Net Burn Rate: The actual loss each month after revenue is included. For example, if you spend $100k and generate $40k in revenue, your net burn is $60k.
Net burn is what truly determines your runway — how many months remain before the bank account hits zero.
How to Calculate Your Startup’s Runway
Runway tells you how long your company can survive with its current cash and burn rate. The formula is simple:
Runway = Total Cash ÷ Monthly Net Burn
For example:
If your startup has $500k in the bank and burns $50k per month, you have 10 months of runway.
Founders should reassess this figure monthly — or even weekly during unstable periods — to avoid being caught off guard.
What Causes Burn Rate to Spiral?
Burn rate typically increases when startups move too fast without systems in place. Common causes include:
• Over-hiring before product-market fit
• Excessive marketing spend with uncertain ROI
• High founder salaries too early
• Long development cycles with unclear milestones
• Expensive tools and software stacks
• Poor forecasting or outdated budgets
Most burn rate crises are preventable — they happen when founders stop watching the numbers.
Tools for Burn Rate Tracking
Modern financial tools make it easy to track burn rate automatically. Some popular solutions include:
• Brex — Real-time spend tracking and forecasting.
• Ramp — Smart alerts, cost controls, and burn analytics.
• QuickBooks — Simple profit/loss and expense insights.
• Wave — Free accounting for early-stage startups.
• Sturppy — Startup-focused financial models and dashboards.
These tools connect your banking, payroll, and expenses to provide a clear monthly picture of how fast money is moving.
How Founders Use Burn Rate Insights
Burn rate is more than a calculation — it’s a strategic lens. Founders use burn rate insights to:
• Decide the right moment to raise a funding round
• Shift budgets toward high-ROI channels
• Reduce unnecessary software and subscriptions
• Freeze hiring until revenue stabilises
• Model worst-case, best-case, and realistic scenarios
• Extend runway during tough market conditions
When burn rate is under control, founders gain confidence, stability, and breathing room.
How GlobalMail.Ai Helps You Stay on Top of Your Numbers
Burn rate tracking involves receipts, invoices, payroll updates, bank alerts, and investor reporting. GlobalMail.Ai keeps your financial inbox organised, structured, and easy to navigate.
With GlobalMail.Ai, founders can:
• Create folders for payroll, expenses, receipts, and financial updates
• Track investor communication around runway and forecasting
• Keep purchase confirmations and invoices neatly archived
• Automatically label emails from accounting tools
• Maintain clean financial records for audits and fundraising
When you control your burn rate, you control your future. Tracking your spending, protecting your runway, and making strategic decisions ensures your startup stays alive long enough to win.
| Category ⇅ | Tool / Method ⇅ | What It Does ⇅ | Best For ⇅ | Key Features for Burn Tracking ⇅ | Website |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spend Management | Brex | Corporate cards, spend controls, and dashboards that show real-time burn and runway. | Venture-backed startups with team cards and global spend. | Real-time spend Burn & runway views Category controls | Open |
| Spend Management | Ramp | Expense management and corporate cards with alerts and automated savings suggestions. | Startups looking to cut unnecessary spend and monitor burn tightly. | Burn alerts Vendor insights Policy automation | Open |
| Accounting & Reporting | QuickBooks | Tracks income and expenses, producing profit/loss reports that show burn trends. | Founders needing basic accounting plus burn visibility. | P&L reports Cash flow view | Open |
| Accounting & Reporting | Xero | Cloud accounting with bank feeds and monthly reporting for spend and runway. | Remote-first or global startups. | Multi-currency Real-time bank feeds | Open |
| FP&A & Forecasting | Sturppy | Startup-focused financial modelling and dashboards showing burn and runway scenarios. | Early and growth-stage startups building investor-ready models. | Scenario planning Investor reports | Open |
| FP&A & Forecasting | Finmark | Forecasts revenue, expenses, and runway visually. | SaaS companies wanting live burn dashboards. | Runway charts Cash scenarios | Open |
| Banking & Cash | Mercury | Startup banking with simple dashboards for cash, inflows, and outflows. | US-based startups wanting startup-friendly banking. | Cash overview Integrated spend | Open |
| Manual / DIY | Google Sheets Runway Model | Simple spreadsheet that tracks monthly spend, revenue, and calculates runway. | Pre-seed or very early-stage founders. | Fully custom No software cost | Open |
| Manual / DIY | Notion Finance Workspace | Custom databases to track expenses, revenue, and monthly burn. | Founders already running ops in Notion. | Centralised workspace Flexible views | Open |
| Accounting & Reporting | GlobalMail.Ai (Communication Layer) | Organises financial emails, receipts, invoices, and investor updates related to burn and runway. | Founders who want a clean communication layer on top of their finance stack. | Finance folders Investor threads Receipt archiving | Open |
