One pizza, three doors
Channel mix is the profit story at a takeout counter, and it only becomes visible when each order carries its own costs. An app order at the same menu price surrenders 25 to 30% of the ticket before packaging and any promotion you funded; your own delivery trades that commission for driver wages, per-kilometre amounts and insurance; the counter order keeps nearly everything but depends on someone walking in. We build a monthly view of contribution per order by channel from the weekly books our pizza shop accounting work keeps.
| Per-order reality | Counter | Own delivery | App order |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commission | None | None | 25–30% of the ticket, its HST claimable back |
| Delivery labour | None | Driver wage plus a per-kilometre amount | Inside the commission |
| Promotions | Your own choosing | Your own choosing | Often platform-pushed and shop-funded |
| Who owns the customer | You | You | The platform keeps the data and the relationship |
The decisions follow the numbers, not the noise: which platforms keep their tablet on the counter, whether app menu prices should sit above the board where the agreement permits it, and how hard to steer regulars toward the phone and your own site, where the margin question barely exists.
Cheese moves; the menu board does not
Mozzarella is the heaviest cost on the pie, priced off a regulated dairy market that resets on its own schedule, and flour follows the wheat market; the menu, meanwhile, is printed, photographed and mirrored across three app listings. That gap between moving costs and a sticky price is where margin quietly leaks. The discipline is monthly: re-cost the signature pies from current invoices, grams of cheese per size against the latest block price, and watch contribution per pie rather than a blended food-cost percentage.
A scale at the make line keeps the recipe honest between costings, because portion drift is a price increase you give away for free. When the numbers do call for a real increase, small scheduled steps hold better than one dramatic jump, and the app menus are usually the place to start.
The buying side gets the same monthly attention as the menu side. Cheese and flour arrive by the case and the bag, and unit prices creep between orders in a way a busy owner never sees; we track the invoice price per case over time, flag the creep, and put the cheese contract out to a second distributor for a quote when the trend justifies it. On an ingredient this heavy in the recipe, a small negotiated difference repeats itself on every pie the ovens turn out.
Franchise or independent, measured in your own statements
The royalty question deserves arithmetic, not loyalty. A franchise buys brand pull, app placement and a supply chain, and charges the royalty and advertising-fund percentages its agreement sets; independence buys supplier freedom, above all on the cheese contract, and keeps the marketing budget in your hands to spend or hold. We build the comparison from your own statements: what the fees cost against what an independent must self-fund to hold the same volume, and what each path leaves per order at your actual channel mix.
The natural decision point is renewal, and it deserves the same preparation as the original signing. Operators cross in both directions, and the ones who cross well do it with two years of channel-level numbers in hand rather than a feeling about the brand.
Growth levers cheaper than a second counter
Before counter two, three levers use the kitchen you already pay for. Longer hours only pay if the late window covers its labour and its risk, and the daypart numbers will say so plainly: sales after midnight against the cook, the counter and the drivers required to earn them, judged week by week rather than remembered from one loud Saturday. A wider own-delivery radius is bounded by driver minutes per run, not by ambition, because one far order consumes the driver two nearby ones would have. And a catering or event line sells the quiet afternoon hours the ovens currently waste. When the numbers do point to a second location, we shape the case through Business Financing Advisory, so the bank sees a credit file, not a hope.
The cadence of a Fractional CFO engagement here is monthly channel-level profit, a quarterly re-cost and pricing pass, and an annual budget with the growth question answered from evidence. It is sized for an owner-run counter rather than a head office, serves shops across Mississauga and the GTA, and is quoted in writing after a free 15-minute discovery call.
