$7,564 in a Good Month, $2,458 in a Bad One: Plan for Both

Scope and Shape of the Note

This note looks at money for 5 units over 29 months at a hotel lobby bar, written from the buyer's side of the table. The figures are modelled rather than measured: cup volumes, price per cup and cost lines follow stated assumptions, and the arithmetic is left visible so a reader can substitute their own numbers.

The Inputs, Line by Line

Cup volume is stated per unit per day. Revenue is cups x 30 days x units x price per cup, taken at 9.3. Cost is consumables, the site share, power and parts. Payback is equipment spend divided by steady monthly net. No figure here is a quotation.

The model keeps the ramp separate from the steady state: the early months carry a lower cup count, and the steady figure is the plateau the site settles into once regulars appear. A reader who expects a different ramp can replace it without disturbing anything else on the page.

Every Line, Every Month

The columns are shown separately because the argument is rarely about the total. It is about which line moves fastest when a site underperforms, and which lines were fixed before the first cup was sold.

Three Things the Rows Show

The best month in this model nets about 7564, the weakest about 2458. The gap is the site's own variability rather than a change in cost, and that gap is what a trial period exists to measure.

At the modelled plateau, payback lands at 19.9 months. Read it as a reading of these assumptions, not a forecast: halve the cup volume and the same placement reads very differently.

Consumables scale with sales, so they rarely surprise anyone. The site share and the route hours are the two lines that do surprise operators, because both are agreed before the first cup and neither moves when the site underperforms.

Where cost Shows Up in the Arithmetic

Two operators can buy the same cabinet at the same price and end up with different businesses, because one priced the route and the other priced the machine.

The line operators underestimate is the one that never appears on a quote: the hours a route spends reaching the site, which lands on the business as a cost per cup even though nobody invoices it.

The useful test is per cup, not per unit: everything divided by cups sold is the only number that survives contact with a slow month.

The Second Question Buyers Ask

Space is the constraint nobody prices correctly. A cabinet on a two-square-metre footprint can be worth a corridor and worthless in a lobby, and the difference is rarely about the machine.

Flow beats footfall. A thousand people walking past a cabinet convert worse than two hundred who queue beside it.

Checks Before the Cabinet Lands

1. List consumables, site share, power, parts and route hours as separate lines
2. Convert the total to a per-cup figure before comparing suppliers
3. State the cup volume the payback assumes, and what happens at half of it
4. Time how long people stand idle within three metres of the spot
5. Measure the delivery path: door widths, turns, lift depth
6. Confirm the trial period and the move-out term before delivery
7. Write the modelled cup volume into the plan and review it after month one

Your Site, Same Method

Anyone can rebuild this table from their own site. The sequence that avoids double counting:

1. Count cups for one week at the busiest and quietest hours, then average honestly rather than optimistically
2. Write down price per cup and the consumable cost per cup from an actual order, not a list price
3. Add the site share, power and parts as separate monthly lines
4. Divide equipment spend plus installation by the steady net, and treat the result as a band
5. Re-run the model at half the cup volume before signing anything

The Venue Changes the Curve

Traffic arrives on a schedule in every venue, and the schedule differs. Four common shapes, and what each one moves first.

None of these patterns is better than another; they are different rhythms. A menu and a restock cadence that suit a shift-change site will look wrong at a clinic, and the reverse is also true.

Three Sentences to Keep

First, the model is a way of arguing, not a promise. If a supplier's number and your number disagree, the disagreement is in one of five inputs, and the conversation is worth having line by line.

Second, the trial period is the cheapest instrument in the whole purchase. It converts an opinion about a site into a reading, and it costs nothing beyond a written move-out term.

Finally, put the planned cup volume in writing. Most placements fail on volume, not margin, and a written number turns that failure into a month-two conversation instead of a year-ten post-mortem.

Where the Model Bends

Three assumptions carry most of the weight - daily cups, the host's percentage, and access hours. Change any one of them by a fifth and the payback moves by more than the others combined.

Compare models, not headlines. Two payback figures built on different cup volumes are not a comparison; they are two advertisements.

Common questions

What belongs in a first-year cost model?

Equipment, installation, the first capsule order, a spare-parts kit and the site share - then the running lines: consumables, power, parts, connectivity and the hours the route takes.

Why quote payback as a band?

Because the inputs move. A band with the assumptions written down stays honest when the site turns out slower or faster than the walkthrough suggested.

What do the modelled numbers actually mean?

They are the arithmetic of stated assumptions, not measurements. Every input is listed in the assumptions section so a buyer can replace it with their own.

Why show six months instead of a full year?

Because the first six months contain the decision: the ramp, the plateau, and the first sign of which cost line moves when the site underperforms.

Related reading

• Where 24% of Revenue Went, and Why Nobody Priced It
• 24 Units, 10 Months, One Table: service at a hotel lobby bar
• The Host Took 30%: What Is Left on 259 Units at a scenic area visitor centre
• On Paper, 9 Months. Read the Assumptions First