How many pizzas a day to be profitable? UK figures for 2026
There is no magic number, but the ranges are clear. A solo pizza van needs roughly 20 to 25 pizzas a day to cover its costs and pay its owner a modest wage. A small takeaway supporting two people needs around 55 to 75 a day, depending on how much goes through Just Eat and Deliveroo. A busy pizzeria with seating passes 100 to 200 on Friday and Saturday nights.
The formula: how many pizzas a day to be profitable?
Your number comes from one line:
Pizzas per day = (monthly fixed costs + the pay you need) ÷ (trading days per month × margin per pizza)
The last term does all the work. Margin per pizza is not the menu price: it is the price excluding VAT, minus food cost, minus variable costs (box, card fees, and platform commission if the order came through an app).
For a 12-inch pizza sold at £12 to take away:
- Hot takeaway food carries 20% VAT, so £12 is £10.00 before VAT. That is a much bigger bite than in France or Italy, where pizza is taxed at 10%.
- Food cost of about 30% of the net price: £3.00.
- Box and card fees: about £0.45.
- Margin per pizza: about £6.55.
For trading days, don’t use 26. Take out holidays, closed bank holidays and, for a van, rained-off nights. Open six days a week with four weeks off, you average 24 days a month; a van trading five nights a week is nearer 20.
Three worked examples
Solo pizza van, sole trader, not VAT-registered
Fixed costs of about £1,200 a month: van finance (£500), insurance including public liability (£150), fuel, gas and generator (£250), pitch fees (£150), and accountant, phone, card reader and licences (£150). Many vans stay below the £90,000 VAT registration threshold, so the whole £12 is theirs: margin is £12 − £3.45 = £8.55.
To clear £2,000 a month before income tax and Class 4 National Insurance: (1,200 + 2,000) ÷ (20 × 8.55) = 19 pizzas a night. For £3,000: 25 a night. That lines up with the 20 to 25 pizzas a night that van operators on trade forums give as the figure “to keep a van alive”.
Small takeaway, two people
Rent £1,800, business rates after any relief £300, energy £800 (the oven runs every night), loan repayments £800, and other costs (insurance, accountant, EPOS, maintenance, waste collection) £900: £4,600 of fixed costs. One full-time employee on the National Living Wage of £12.71 an hour costs about £2,400 a month with employer National Insurance and pension (less if the Employment Allowance covers your NI). The owner draws £2,000. Total: £9,000 a month.
With £6.55 margin and 24 trading days: 9,000 ÷ (24 × 6.55) = 57 pizzas a day.
The same takeaway, with 40% of orders through platforms
Delivery apps take a bigger share of UK pizza orders than in most of Europe. At a 30% commission, a £12 order loses about £3.60, so margin on those pizzas falls to £2.95 and the average to £5.11. You now need 73 pizzas a day for exactly the same income: sixteen more every night.
| Format | Costs + pay / month | Margin per pizza | Days / month | Pizzas / day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Van, not VAT-registered (£2,000) | £3,200 | £8.55 | 20 | 19 |
| Van, not VAT-registered (£3,000) | £4,200 | £8.55 | 20 | 25 |
| Takeaway, 2 people | £9,000 | £6.55 | 24 | 57 |
| Same, 40% via platforms | £9,000 | £5.11 (average) | 24 | 73 |
12-inch pizza at £12, food cost £3.00, box and card fees £0.45. Before income tax.
What delivery platforms really cost you, with your figures
How many pizzas does a takeaway actually sell a day?
Operators’ diaries on pizza trade forums are the best source of real numbers, because people report their nights without polishing them:
- A van’s first night: 30 pizzas, almost all in a 90-minute rush, with three orders turned away.
- One month in: 15 pizzas on slow nights, 30 on the best.
- An established van: 40 on quiet nights, over 100 on big ones. Good small-town and village pitches report 60 to 100 a night.
- A takeaway opened solo: 6 pizzas a night in month one, 40 a night a few months later, open 6pm to 10pm, seven days a week. Established competitors in the same discussion were doing 200 to 400 a night.
Weekends dwarf weekdays. In the UK, Friday and Saturday between 6pm and 8:30pm carry most of the week, and a forecast built on “40 pizzas every day” is wrong: think 25 Monday to Thursday and 70 Friday to Sunday.
Turn this volume into a pizzeria business plan
Your ceiling is your oven and your rush, not demand
Most of a night’s pizzas leave in about two hours. So your daily number depends less on demand than on capacity: pizzas per 15 minutes × quarter-hours in the rush, plus what you sell either side of it.
Pizza makers put it like this: solo, 5 to 8 pizzas per quarter-hour (5 to 6 if you’re also on the phone and the till), 9 to 11 with a helper. Over a two-hour rush, one person makes 40 to 64 pizzas, and a full evening tops out around 60 to 80.
The gap between the number you need and the number you canmake decides whether the business works. A van that needs 25 and can make 70 has room. A takeaway that needs 73 with one pizza maker and a four-pizza oven has none: every wet Tuesday and every botched rush costs real money.
How many pizzas an hour, solo or with help
More advertising rarely fixes this, because the extra orders land at the same time as everyone else’s. Spreading the peak does: take orders in advance, fill each 15-minute slot without overloading it, and stop turning customers away at 7:30pm (see our guide to managing the pizzeria rush).
Raise margin per pizza instead of volume
In the formula, margin counts as much as volume, and it is usually easier to move:
- Portions. At 50 pizzas a day, six days a week, 45 weeks a year, you make 13,500 pizzas. Taking 40 g of mozzarella off each is 540 kg of cheese, or around £2,700 a year, and customers won’t notice.
- Price. £1 more on a £12 pizza lifts margin from £6.55 to £7.38 and cuts the takeaway’s need from 57 to 51 pizzas a day. See how to price a pizza.
- Drinks and sides. A can bought at 50p and sold at £1.80 leaves about £1 of margin and never goes near the oven.
- Direct orders. Every order moved from an app to your phone or website gives back about £3.60.
Turnover, pizzas or a life?
On forums, “how many pizzas” often turns into a debate about how to live. Some aim for 200 a night with a team; others want “40 a night, no bad back, no staff”. Burnout stories from people working seven nights a week in year one are common.
Our view: set your target number from the income you want and the nights you are willing to work, not the other way round. A van doing 35 pizzas five nights a week, with a clean margin, often pays its owner better than a takeaway doing 80 with half of them through apps.
Work out your own number
You need three figures: monthly fixed costs (rent, rates, finance, insurance, energy, accountant), the pay you need, and your margin per pizza (price ex VAT − food cost − box and fees).
Calculate your pizzeria’s break-even point
FAQ
How many pizzas a day does a takeaway need to sell to be profitable?
Divide monthly fixed costs plus your pay by trading days times margin per pizza. In practice: about 20 to 25 a day for a solo van, and 55 or more for a small takeaway paying two people, more if platforms take a big share.
How much does a pizza van make per pizza?
On a van below the VAT threshold selling 20 to 25 a night, about £5 to £6 per £12 pizza is left as profit before income tax. Rent, staff, VAT registration or platform commission all cut that sharply.
How many pizzas will I sell in my first month?
Far fewer than your target. Operators report 6 to 15 a day at first, rising over several months. Keep enough cash to get through that ramp-up.
What limits how many pizzas I can sell a day?
Rush capacity. Most orders arrive within two hours, and on your own you make 5 to 8 pizzas per 15 minutes. Spreading orders across time slots does more than extra marketing.
Do Just Eat and Deliveroo change the number?
Yes. A 25 to 30% commission removes £3 to £3.60 of margin on a £12 pizza. With 40% of orders on apps, you need roughly a quarter more pizzas a day to earn the same.