Pizza vending machine: price and costs

You might be considering acquiring a pizza vending machine, but you're wondering about its price and the costs associated with getting it up and running. Let’s lay out the numbers and help you get a clearer picture.

A quick note, the prices listed below are excluding VAT unless otherwise specified. They are based on our experience and feedback from our customers. Although they are reliable and accurate, they are not intended to replace your business plan. However, you can use these figures as a foundation to build your own!

1. Variable costs

First, there are the variable costs related to the pizza that you are already familiar with: raw materials and 29 cm cardboard boxes. On average, this represents between €2 and €3 for raw materials depending on your ingredients, and between €0.2 and €0.3 for the box.

In addition, there is the fixed price of €0.21 for each pizza, which corresponds to the cooking interface (an aluminum plate that allows for authentic stone baking, essential for ensuring a crispy crust and delivering a pizza identical to those coming out of your ovens).

Finally, electricity consumption varies between €0.1 and €0.3 per pizza depending on the volume.

So, to summarize, this results in a variable cost per pizza between €2.5 and €3.

2. Fixed costs

The fixed costs of a vending machine consist of several components:

a. Purchase cost + financing cost.

The price of the pizza vending machine is between €43,000 and €50,000 excluding VAT depending on the model. However, it is rare to have the necessary equity to purchase it. Even if you did, taking out a loan allows you to maintain cash flow and have more flexibility in managing your business operations.

Typically, a 5-year loan with an average interest rate of 3% is taken out: this represents a monthly cost of approximately €800.

On this topic, you won’t be alone. We actively help you find and negotiate financing options thanks to our expertise and network.

b. Location rent.

The rent obviously depends on the type of location you want to rent. But on average, this represents between €150 and €200 in monthly costs.

As with financing, we will also assist you with this aspect.

c. Internet connection to remotely control the vending machine.

A professional 4G plan with sufficient capacity costs between €30 and €40 per month.

d. Card terminal fee.

In addition to the coin mechanism, you need to allow your customers to pay by card. You should budget around €10 for the card terminal fee.

e. Monthly insurance.

The vending machine is robust and secure, but as with any material investment, a basic insurance is legally required against external environmental risks. Expect to pay between €50 and €70 depending on the optional coverage you choose.

In total, these fixed costs amount to between €950 and €1,050 per month.

3. Profitability estimation

Basic management concepts are necessary to address this topic. All of this is elementary if you're already running your business, but a refresher never hurts.

The profitability of a vending machine mainly depends on the volume of pizzas sold. This is the principle of economies of scale: the more pizzas you sell, the lower the fixed costs per unit. In other words, the more pizzas you sell, the less expensive they are in terms of overhead.

An example:

• If you sell 300 pizzas per month (that is, 10 pizzas per day)
• with total monthly fixed costs of €1,000,
• this represents €3.33 for each pizza.

• If you sell 480 pizzas per month (that is, 16 pizzas per day)
• with the same total monthly fixed costs of €1,000,
• this represents €2.08 for each pizza, which is an additional margin of over €1 per pizza!

Regarding variable costs, they do not change per unit.

In other words, whether you sell 1 or 100 pizzas, each pizza will cost you the same in terms of ingredients and consumables. However, your negotiating and management skills will be useful in this area of expenditure.

The more ingredients you buy in bulk, the lower the price, logically. This is the whole point of projecting sales volume to eventually increase your margin!

Now, you just need to determine your pricing strategy. Based on our vending machine fleet, we observe an average price of around €9 including VAT for a cooked pizza, or €8.18 excluding VAT (10% VAT rate).

Let’s summarize with an average of the costs:

• Variable costs: €2.6 excluding VAT per pizza.
• Fixed costs: €1,000 excluding VAT per month.
• Unit price of the pizza: €8.18 excluding VAT.

Thus, you reach the breakeven point (the moment when you start making a profit) after selling... 6.27 pizzas per day! Compared to the hundreds of pizzas you already sell at your retail location, you can see this is very appealing!

It’s very easy and quick to make your investment profitable and generate a second source of income. Look at this:

With the figures above, selling 10 pizzas per day results in a margin of €8,088 per year, and selling 20 pizzas per day results in a margin of €28,176 (without considering bulk ingredient savings, where you could exceed €30,000!). In other words, the price of the pizza vending machine and the overall investment are quickly recouped!

Of course, these numbers can vary depending on your area, pricing strategy, the evolution of your costs, etc. However, this gives you a global overview of the profitability of a pizza vending machine and the costs needed to set it up.

Still, if you need a personalized study of your projected profitability, we systematically provide one during vending machine demonstrations we regularly offer to the restaurants of our future clients. Request yours, it’s free.