Milk tea shop costing: what one cup really costs

September 29, 2026 · 3 min read

Milk tea looks profitable because the ingredients seem cheap. The small items, like cups, straws and film, are where the profit quietly goes.

List everything that goes into one cup

Break each drink into its parts. Here is an example for one medium cup. Use your own supplier prices.

If you sell that cup at ₱69, the ingredient profit is ₱46. But you are not done.

Add your fixed costs

Rent, electricity, water and staff are paid whether you sell ten cups or two hundred. Add up a month of these costs and divide by the cups you expect to sell.

Example: ₱30,000 a month in fixed costs and 1,500 cups sold means ₱20 per cup. Your real cost is now about ₱43, and your profit per cup is closer to ₱26.

Price add-ons properly

Extra pearls, nata, pudding and cheese foam each have a cost. Charge for each one based on what it costs you, not a round number that feels right.

Watch waste

Cooked pearls last only a few hours. Cook in smaller batches through the day instead of one big batch in the morning. Waste you throw away is ingredient cost with no sale.

Track it automatically

With the Ingredients add-on in Tindro, you set a recipe for each drink. Every sale deducts the cup, straw, pearls and milk from stock, and the reports show the true cost and profit per cup.

Questions