Sample cost model
What does one cycle really cost?
This is a simplified, public version of the model we build with clients. Six inputs, the four cost blocks they drive, and the two numbers most business cases forget: how many containers you need to own, and how much capital that ties up.
Your inputs
Cost per cycle
—
- Washing
- Transport & return
- Shrinkage
- Pool management
- Cycles per day
- Containers you need to own
- Capital tied up in containers
Take the spreadsheet with you
The same model as an Excel file, with the formulas visible and every assumption on its own row. Nothing is locked — change the inputs and it recalculates.
Or have it sent to you
Leave an email address and the spreadsheet comes back to you. No sequence, no newsletter — we write when there is something worth reading.
We use the address to send the model and to reply if you write back. Nothing else. See the privacy policy.
The formulas
How it is calculated
- Washing is the partner price per crate, taken as given.
- Transport & return = 2 × distance × € 1.42 per km ÷ 900 crates per truck. Round trip, at a full load.
- Shrinkage = loss rate × replacement value. A 2.9% loss on a € 6.55 crate is € 0.19 per cycle.
- Pool management is held flat at € 0.14 per cycle — administration, IT and pool balancing. In a real model this is built up from your actual overhead.
- Containers you need to own = cycles per day × return time × 1.15 buffer. This is the number that decides your working capital.
- Capital tied up = containers × replacement value.
This is a teaching model, not a quote. It uses one flat rate per kilometre, one truck load and one fixed overhead figure. The model we build with you replaces every one of those with your partners' real quoted capacity, and carries a source and a date on every input.
Want this run on your numbers?
Send us your volumes and geography and we will come back with the version that uses your real figures.