In a wide-ranging interview with presenters Annie Macmanus and Nick Grimshaw, Eavis said they donated £5.9m to charity last year, "the largest sum we've managed to do".
They usually "actively try not to make a profit", but have had to do so in the last couple of years having lost £10m due to Covid.
She also revealed that they have to pay an extra £1m for added expenses if there is wet weather, including tonnes of woodchip on the ground to stop people from slipping in the mud.
The festival pays its stars "a lot less" than they could earn from their own major commercial gigs - but it has increased its fees in recent years, she said.
"We are paying people a lot more than we ever have but it's not as much as you would get doing Hyde Park.
"It's such a corporate world, especially in the music industry. We are offered a lot of things that we turn down."
She told the podcast: "The whole thing is based on goodwill.
"Imagine if we tried to sell it out [to commercial brands]. It would be awful, it would be the end. I'd rather literally die before that happened. It just can't happen."