Will a packing machine pay for itself?
A buyer-side worksheet for the question that actually stops the purchase: is this worth the money, and how long until it is. It uses the numbers you already have — people, wages, a quotation — and the costs first-time buyers usually leave out.
The machine price is the easiest number, and the least complete one.
Most first-time buyers arrive from hand-packing or a co-packer, not from another machine. The worksheet is the same. The row that moves the result is not.
You pack by hand
Your constraint is people and hours. The useful comparison is what those people cost you today against a smaller crew plus the machine’s own running cost.
Fill the labour row first. Leave the co-packer row empty.
You use a co-packer
Your constraint is usually a yearly invoice, plus minimum runs and someone else’s schedule. Bringing packing in-house can still raise your own labour — that is not a bug in the maths.
Put this year’s co-packer spend on the left. Put what you would still outsource on the right.
You are replacing a machine
Your constraint is usually changeover, waste or downtime, not headcount. Count only the labour and waste that actually change.
Put the old machine’s yearly running cost on the left, under Other.
A quotation that looks cheaper can lose once freight, duty, site work and the people you will still pay are on the page. The worksheet is there so that argument happens in the open, before anyone treats a payback figure as a promise.
Put the quotation on the left. Put the year on the right.
Two tables. The first is what you pay once. The second is what a year costs today against what a year would cost with the machine. Empty money cells count as zero. Labour counts only when people, wage and hours are all filled.
Table A
What you pay once
Use the quotation in front of you. If a line is already inside the machine price, leave it empty so it is not counted twice.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| The itemised host machine, filler and options you are actually buying. | |
| Getting it to your door. Taxes are often extra — check the term on the quote. | |
| If the quotation already includes this, leave the cell empty. | |
| Power, compressed air, floor, access. Your building, not the supplier’s. | |
| Format parts, commissioning time, a first spare-parts hold. | |
| Total investment |
Table B
What a year costs
Left is how you pack now. Right is the same year with the machine running normally — not the first awkward month.
Labour basis
8 hours, one shift, 240 days is a starting assumption for a single-shift plant. Change it. Wage should include employer costs, not just the hourly rate.
| Line | Today | With the machine |
|---|---|---|
| Labour From the basis above. Shows a dash until people, wage and hours are all present. | ||
| This year’s invoice, or what you would still send out. | ||
| Annual cost of the same categories on both sides. Leave empty if you do not have it. | ||
| Maintenance, wear parts, utilities. Today is blank unless you already run a machine — use Other. | — | |
| Old-machine running cost, extra film, or anything else you pay every year. Cost only — not profit. | ||
| Only the yearly margin on extra packs you have demand for. Unsold capacity is zero. | — | |
| Yearly total | ||
| Yearly difference | ||
This is a planning worksheet, not a Spack Machine quotation, payback guarantee or performance claim. The arithmetic is undiscounted: every year is treated as the same. Extra capacity only belongs in Other if you can sell it.
Payback says when you are even. The third year says whether it was worth it.
A short payback is easier to approve. It is not the same as a good project. A project can recover in year two and still be the wrong machine if the labour you counted never actually leaves the payroll.
Treat as a working number
- Payback is total investment ÷ yearly difference × 12. It only appears when both sides are above zero.
- Saved / year is today’s yearly total minus the yearly total with the machine. A negative figure means the machine year is more expensive.
- After 3 years subtracts the investment from three copies of that yearly difference. It is not an annualised return and it does not discount later years.
- “Does not recover” is a result. It usually means labour was counted that you will still pay, or Table A is still a lump-sum guess.
Do not treat as a decision
- A brochure speed is not sellable output. Unsold packs are not profit.
- A reduction in touch time is not a reduction in paid people. Count a person only if the role goes, or is moved to work you would have hired for anyway.
- The first months of a new line are slower. This worksheet assumes a normal year, not commissioning.
- Two quotations cannot be compared on payback until both are itemised the same way. That is a buying-guide problem, not a calculator problem.
The lines that change the answer after the host price is agreed.
These are the costs a first import typically discovers between the quotation and the first production week. None of them is a Spack Machine price. They are the budget list to complete before anyone signs.
If two suppliers are still being compared, stop using this worksheet as a scoreboard. Ask both for the same itemised quotation — host, filler, infeed, coding, inspection, conveyors, what is excluded, and what you must supply. That comparison is written out in the first-machine buying guide.
Take the worksheet to the people who have to approve it.
The useful output is not a percentage on a screen. It is a short list of assumptions you can defend — and the holes you still need a supplier to fill.
Send with the first enquiry
- The product, the pack format and every fill size.
- How you pack today: by hand, through a co-packer, or on a small machine.
- The investment lines you have already filled, and the ones that are still blank.
- Destination country, electrical supply, and whether compressed air exists.
Ask the supplier to answer in writing
- What is inside the host price, and what is not.
- Whether installation and training are a line or an extra.
- Which trade term they are quoting, and what that leaves for you.
- What the machine will not handle — film, fill, or format.
Send the pack you need to make, and the numbers you already trust.
We will say which machine route fits, where the limits are, and what a quotation would have to itemise. If it does not fit, we will say so. The worksheet stays yours — we do not need it uploaded.
