Dark kitchen economics: rent, apps and orders per day

A dark kitchen stops losing money when what you keep per order, after app commission, food and packaging, covers its fixed costs for each day. The sum is one division: fixed cost per day ÷ kept per order = orders a day you need. If that number is above what you sell, or above what you can cook at peak time, the problem is the rent, the price or the channel mix, and you can see it before you sign the lease.

A dark kitchen's fixed costs

These are the costs you pay even on a day with no orders:

• Rent for the unit or the shared commissary kitchen.
• Equipment payments or depreciation: pizza oven, fryer, range, extraction, freezers.
• Fixed wages: a helper, a cook, whoever packs.
• Base utilities, internet, phone and the ordering software.
• Your own pay. If you do not pay yourself, the business looks profitable while you work for free.

Add them up for the month and divide by the days you actually open. If a cost rises with every order (food, packaging, commission, the oil for each batch of fries), it does not go here; it goes into what you keep per order. The guide to fixed and variable costs helps you sort the unclear ones.

What you keep per order

For each order that comes in through an app:

kept per order = price − commission − food − packaging

If you also pay for promotions or have refunds, subtract them spread across the month's orders, as in the guide to delivery-first food businesses.

Commission is the number that weighs most and the one you control least. Each app sets its own terms and the only figure that counts is the one in your contract. This guide uses 25% purely as an example. If you have not set your app price yet, the guide to selling on delivery apps shows how, and the delivery app price tool gives you the app price that keeps your margin after commission.

Worked example: a delivery-only pizza kitchen

You open a pizza kitchen with no dining room and a collection hatch. Your best seller is a 12-inch margherita. Prices are before any sales tax; check your local tax rules if your prices include it.

What you keep per app order:

Fixed costs for the month:

You open every day: 8,400 ÷ 30 = $280 a day.

Orders a day: 280 ÷ 8.50 = 32.9, so 33 orders. At 33 you keep 33 × 8.50 = $280.50. At 32 you keep $272.00 and lose $8.00 that day.

Look at the rent on its own: 2,800 ÷ 30 = $93.33 a day, and 93.33 ÷ 8.50 = 11.0. The first 11 orders of every day only pay for the unit. That is the clearest way to tell whether a rent is expensive for you.

What moves the orders you need

With the same $280 of fixed cost per day, change what you keep per order and everything changes:

With a higher commission. At 30%, commission is 18.00 × 0.30 = $5.40 and you keep 18.00 − 5.40 − 4.10 − 0.90 = $7.60. You need 4 more orders every day.

With direct orders. A customer who orders by phone or on your website, pays by card and collects from the hatch pays no commission. At the same price you keep 18.00 − 4.10 − 0.90 = $13.00. If 4 in 10 orders come in this way, your average is 0.60 × 8.50 + 0.40 × 13.00 = 5.10 + 5.20 = $10.30, and 28 orders a day cover what 33 app-only orders did. If you want to deliver those direct orders yourself, cost each trip before you compare.

To run the same sum in units per month, use the break-even tool; the guide to break-even for a food business explains the full method.

The other question: can you cook them?

Hitting the number is not enough if you cannot send those orders out when they arrive. In a dark kitchen, orders bunch into a few hours. If 25 of your 33 orders land between 6 and 9 pm, you need to send out more than 8 pizzas an hour in that window, with the oven, the bench space and the hands you have.

Check three things in your own records:

• How many orders an hour go out right in your kitchen, with your team, without anything going cold.
• Which part of the day sits idle. Those hours pay rent all the same. A second line of dishes or a virtual brand using the same ingredients can fill them.
• How long packing takes. A well-packed, sealed order takes time; count it when you work out how many fit in an hour.

If the orders you need do not fit into your busy hours, selling more will not fix it. Lower rent, a higher price or more direct orders will.

Before you sign a lease

Run the sum with the rent of the unit you are looking at and with what you keep per order from your recipe and your commission. If the orders you need are more than you sell today on your best days, that unit forces you to grow before you earn. It can still be worth it. Decide with the number in front of you before you sign, because by month three it is too late.

Do it with the calculator

Put your recipe, packaging and app commission into the food cost calculator, and it gives you the price you need, with tax and channel commission included. From that price, work out what you keep per order and divide your daily fixed cost by it.