ROI · work it out yourself
Change the four numbers until the answer looks like your site.
Most vending pages show you a payback figure and hide the assumptions behind it. This one shows the arithmetic: four inputs you control, three outputs that follow from them, and the formula written underneath in plain text so you can check it with a calculator if you do not trust ours.
The calculator
Pick a machine, then move the inputs. Everything recalculates on the same four steps, and nothing is rounded in the factory's favour.
Prices are EXW Guangzhou and cover the machine only. Freight, duty, import VAT, card fees, rent, electricity and labour are outside every figure on this page. Consumables are costed at our factory prices; if you buy sugar locally, use your own invoice instead.
The whole model, in five lines.
| Monthly revenue | serves per day × price per serve × trading days |
|---|---|
| Monthly consumables | serves per day × cost per serve × trading days |
| Monthly gross profit | revenue − consumables |
| Payback | machine price ÷ monthly gross profit |
| First-year gross | monthly gross profit × 12 |
Why the machine matters less than the fourth number.
Look at what happens when you change the machine and leave the site alone. A CT-103 at $2,700 pays back in 1.0 months on twenty serves a day at $5.00; a CT-608 at $6,800 takes 2.4. But the CT-608 carries two topping hoppers, six colours and a cabinet that reads from fifteen metres, and on a mall atrium it may sell forty serves where the tabletop sells eight. The model choice is a bet about the site, not about the machine, which is why we ask for the ceiling height and the Saturday footfall before we quote a model number.
The other reason to publish the formula is that it lets you disagree with us. Rent of $400 a month, a card fee of two per cent and a part-time refill round can turn a 2.4-month payback into a break-even business, and no factory calculator that leaves them out is telling you the truth. Put your own numbers in, subtract your rent, and if the answer still works, the machine probably does too.
Two things people ask about the calculator.
What is a realistic number of serves per day?
Does the calculator include rent and card fees?
Send us the number you landed on.
If your site does eight serves a day, say so — we will tell you which model survives that, and it may not be the one you were looking at.