Bubble tea franchise breakeven-cups calculator tool - rent, labor, and HQ monthly fees into fixed costs; ingredient cost ratio taken as "last 3 months purchases / sales," never the franchisor's theoretical figure; in-store and delivery computed as separate lines, plus a three-row sensitivity table and cash runway
You are a coding agent building a tool for a bubble
tea franchisee. Build a single-file HTML tool
(HTML/CSS/JS fully inline, no external dependencies,
no network requests, opens by double-click) that
computes a store's breakeven cups and cash runway.
Computation logic (bake into the tool):
- Fixed cost per month = rent + labor + utilities +
HQ monthly fixed fees (management / system) +
debt service if any
- Variable costs, two lines:
in-store line = average ticket x ingredient cost
ratio
delivery line = average ticket x (ingredient cost
ratio + platform commission and promo cost-share
rate)
All rates are typed by the owner; input boxes start
empty - never pre-fill "typical industry values"
- The ingredient cost ratio's sourcing rule is
printed beside its input box, fixed: last three
months' purchases / sales (purchases exclude
equipment) - the franchisor's theoretical cost
ratio is banned; theory and reality never match
- Breakeven cups = monthly fixed cost / weighted
margin per cup (weighted by the in-store /
delivery order split, which the owner enters)
- Cash runway = available cash / recent monthly net
outflow (owner enters the actual recent figure;
if net outflow is negative, show "profitable this
month - not applicable")
Input area:
- Fixed costs line by line, both lines' tickets and
cost rates, order split, available cash, recent
monthly net outflow, 7-day average daily cups
- Every figure editable, instant recalculation on
change
Output area:
- Daily breakeven cups (monthly breakeven / trading
days this month) side by side with the 7-day
average; the gap is the daily shortfall or surplus
- Three tiers: average >= breakeven -> green;
between 0.9 x breakeven and breakeven -> yellow;
below 0.9 x breakeven -> red. Red permanently
displays one line: "Two straight weeks in red:
move the biggest fixed cost first (whichever of
rent / labor / HQ fees is largest) - do not cut
prices first; a price cut hits margin and the
breakeven line at both ends"
- Sensitivity table (three fixed rows): ticket -1 /
ingredient cost ratio +2 points / rent negotiated
down 10% - where each pushes daily breakeven cups
- "Export one-page summary" button: plain text,
the version for a partner or family member
Constraints:
- No accounts, no network, no cloud - financial data
lives in browser localStorage, with a one-click
wipe
- Any empty input renders "pending" in the output -
never compute on zero or the previous value. One
wrong breakeven line makes every decision after
it wrong.
- The tool produces numbers only, never "revenue
growth advice" - the owner's moves are not the
tool's business
- Usable one-handed on a phone in portrait (the
owner opens it in the store), body text no
smaller than 16px
Why it is written this way
Splitting in-store and delivery into two lines exists because their cost structures differ at the root: the same cup eats only ingredients in-store but also commission and promo cost-share on delivery. A blended "average cost ratio" yields a breakeven line that reads low for delivery-heavy stores and high for in-store-heavy ones - wrong at both ends, and a breakeven line's entire value is being believed.
Forcing the ingredient cost ratio to "last three months' purchases / sales" and banning the franchisor's theoretical figure addresses a franchise-specific trap. The ratio on the recruitment projection is an ideal recipe value with no waste, no spoilage, no promo give-away - and the gap between it and reality can swallow the entire profit. The tool cannot make the ratio accurate, but it can nail the sourcing convention next to the input box so that someone about to type "about 35%" pauses for a second.
The sensitivity table is exactly three fixed rows, by deliberate restraint. The classic red-tier mistake is cutting prices to chase volume - which slashes ticket and margin simultaneously and pushes the breakeven line up. Three rows of sensitivity put "which lever moves the line, and by how much" in one view, more direct than any advice. The one fixed sentence in the red tier is the tool's only piece of "talk": it does not decide for the owner, it just marks the most common wrong road.
"Pending, never defaulted" is the honesty floor shared by every reconciliation tool: a breakeven line computed on zeroed inputs still produces output, all of it wrong - and once a tool has helped its user balance the books wrong even once, none of its lines get believed again.
Variables
| Variable | Notes |
|---|---|
| Trading days | Days used to convert monthly to daily breakeven - use the store's actual schedule (count closing days); dividing by a flat 30 understates the daily line |
| Platform commission and cost-share rate | The delivery line's all-in deduction, taken from last month's platform settlement statement - using the nominal commission rate misses the promo share and leaves the whole delivery line too loose |