How Much Do You Really Make on a Bubble Tea?
Ning MaThe short answer: a bubble tea made from TeaJoy commercial kits costs a café £1.75 to £2.50 at the prices listed on our site, with the cup, lid and straw in the box. Sold at an example menu price of £4, that leaves £1.50 to £2.25 a drink, before your water or milk, ice, VAT, staff and overheads.
Our commercial kit boxes print the words "high margin". This post puts that into pounds, one drink at a time. The menu prices here are examples we picked to show the sum, and the kit prices are the ones listed on our site, taxes included.
Trade terms: £200 minimum order, free delivery and free samples, with orders arriving in 3 to 4 working days. How to order TeaJoy wholesale has the steps.
What one drink costs you from a kit
The cost side is the box price divided by the drinks it makes:
- The Mango & Passionfruit Bubble Tea Kit, a fruit tea: £40 for 20 drinks is £2.00 a drink, and £140 for 80 drinks is £1.75.
- The Classic Milk Tea Bubble Tea Kit: £25 for 10 drinks is £2.50 a drink, and £80 for 40 drinks is £2.00.
That figure already pays for the cup, the lid and the straw, because they come in the box. It pays for the tea and the topping too: syrup and popping boba in the fruit kit, and one sachet of tea powder and one of instant tapioca per drink in the milk kit. Every commercial kit on our site costs £25 or more, and UK orders of £20 or more ship free, so there is no delivery line to add. What else sits in a 20-drink box is set out in our commercial kit guide, and the rest of what a café spends to get going is in how much it costs to add bubble tea to a café menu.
What you add, and who prices it
A fruit tea from the kit is 300ml of water, 50ml of syrup, a spoon of boba and ice. A milk tea is 300ml of milk or a milk alternative, one sachet of tea powder, one sachet of tapioca and ice. So the café adds water and ice to a fruit tea, and milk or a plant milk and ice to a milk tea.
You price those yourself. We do not know what you pay for milk, or which milk your customers ask for, so the sums below stop at the kit. To finish them for your own counter, take the cost of your 300ml of milk or water, and your ice, off the figure in the table.
The margin over the kit cost at three example menu prices
The table uses three example menu prices: £3.50, £4 and £4.50. Each row subtracts the kit cost per drink from the menu price. It does not subtract water or milk, ice, VAT, staff or overheads.
| Kit and size | Example menu price | Menu price minus kit cost | Margin over kit cost, as a share of the menu price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mango & Passionfruit, 20 drinks | £3.50 | £3.50 minus £2.00 = £1.50 | 43% |
| Mango & Passionfruit, 20 drinks | £4.00 | £4.00 minus £2.00 = £2.00 | 50% |
| Mango & Passionfruit, 20 drinks | £4.50 | £4.50 minus £2.00 = £2.50 | 56% |
| Mango & Passionfruit, 80 drinks | £3.50 | £3.50 minus £1.75 = £1.75 | 50% |
| Mango & Passionfruit, 80 drinks | £4.00 | £4.00 minus £1.75 = £2.25 | 56% |
| Mango & Passionfruit, 80 drinks | £4.50 | £4.50 minus £1.75 = £2.75 | 61% |
| Classic Milk Tea, 10 drinks | £3.50 | £3.50 minus £2.50 = £1.00 | 29% |
| Classic Milk Tea, 10 drinks | £4.00 | £4.00 minus £2.50 = £1.50 | 38% |
| Classic Milk Tea, 10 drinks | £4.50 | £4.50 minus £2.50 = £2.00 | 44% |
| Classic Milk Tea, 40 drinks | £3.50 | £3.50 minus £2.00 = £1.50 | 43% |
| Classic Milk Tea, 40 drinks | £4.00 | £4.00 minus £2.00 = £2.00 | 50% |
| Classic Milk Tea, 40 drinks | £4.50 | £4.50 minus £2.00 = £2.50 | 56% |
Two things move the number. The menu price moves it pound for pound: every 50p on the price is 50p more per drink, whichever kit you use. Box size moves it too. The larger sizes are a case of four boxes, and each case costs £20 less than four single boxes: £140 against £160 for the fruit tea, £80 against £100 for the milk tea. Put the two together and the 80-drink fruit tea case at £4.50 shows the widest gap in the table, £2.75 a drink.
What a whole box makes, sold through
Here is the same sum for a whole box at the £4 example price, if every drink in it sells.
| Kit and size | Takings at the £4 example | Kit price | Left before what you add |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mango & Passionfruit, 20 drinks | 20 x £4 = £80 | £40 | £40 |
| Mango & Passionfruit, 80 drinks | 80 x £4 = £320 | £140 | £180 |
| Classic Milk Tea, 10 drinks | 10 x £4 = £40 | £25 | £15 |
| Classic Milk Tea, 40 drinks | 40 x £4 = £160 | £80 | £80 |
"If every drink sells" weighs more on one kit than the other. In the fruit tea kits, the syrup bottle and the boba tub each hold 20 portions, and once opened you use them within 30 days, with the boba kept in the fridge. In the milk tea kit, every drink has its own sachets, opened only when a customer orders one. If you are still choosing between the two, which commercial kit a café should start with sets them side by side.
What the sums leave out
The figures above are what is left after the kit cost, before VAT, staff and overheads, and you know your own numbers for those. The kit prices inside them are the prices on our product pages, which say taxes are included. On staff time, a kit drink takes about 20 seconds from start to finish, with nothing to boil and no machine to buy. Our kits cut bubble tea prep from two hours to 20 seconds.
This post is about drinks made up in the cup. Selling a sealed can with no making up at all is a different sum, and our guide to RTD bubble tea margins covers it for shops.
Questions people ask
What is left after the kit cost at a £4 menu price?
Made with our kits at listed prices, a drink sold at £4 leaves £1.50 to £2.25 before your milk or water and ice. £4 is an example price, and the figure is before VAT, staff and overheads.
Which TeaJoy kit leaves the most per drink?
An 80-drink fruit tea case, at £1.75 a drink. At the £4 example price, that leaves £2.25 a drink before your water and ice.
Does a bigger kit leave more per drink?
Yes, at any menu price. The 80-drink fruit tea case costs £1.75 a drink against £2 in the 20-drink box, so it leaves 25p more a drink. The 40-drink milk tea case costs £2 against £2.50, so it leaves 50p more.
What does the kit cost per drink include?
The tea and the topping, plus the cup, the lid and the straw: syrup and popping boba in a fruit tea kit, one sachet of tea powder and one of instant tapioca per drink in the milk tea kit. You add water or milk, and ice. There is no machine to buy, and a drink takes about 20 seconds.
Start with a free sample
Taste the drink first, then run the sums with your own milk, your own menu price and, once you register as a stockist, the trade pricing we confirm for you. Tell us about your café on our wholesale page: free samples, £200 minimum order, free delivery. TeaJoy is served in more than 800 UK locations, and 2.5 million of our drinks have been sold. Every size and flavour is on our commercial kits page.