ROI calculator
Do the math before anyone sells you anything.
This vending ROI calculator estimates what connected hardware and Kava OS could change at your sites: revenue, service visits, fresh-food waste and energy, minus what it all costs. The defaults come from measured 8Kava results. Change any of them.
- revenue per device after retrofit
- +18%revenue per device after retrofit
- service visits per device
- −27%service visits per device
- fresh-food waste
- −33%fresh-food waste
Estimate your return
Enter your fleet as it runs today: how many devices, what each sells in a month, your gross margin and what a service visit costs you. Then choose the hardware and Kava OS plan you're considering. Every improvement rate starts at a measured 8Kava result, and every one can be changed.
Estimated net annual impact
Improvement rates are trailing-12-month results measured across 8Kava deployments. Visit and waste savings need Pro or Autopilot. Shrink and energy savings apply to 8Kava smart coolers, not retrofitted machines. Revenue lift is your assumption: retrofits averaged +18% in their first 90 days. Estimates only; your results will vary.
Get a site-specific modelHow the estimate is built
Four steps, in the order a finance team would check them.
Start from your baseline
Monthly sales, gross margin and service visits, plus waste and energy if you sell fresh food or run refrigerated units. Your numbers, not an industry average.
Apply improvement rates
Each rate touches only the part of the baseline it affects: revenue lift applies to sales, visit reduction to visit costs, waste reduction to fresh-food write-offs, energy savings to refrigerated units.
Convert sales to margin
New revenue counts at your gross margin, not at full price. A dollar of extra sales is worth what you keep after product cost.
Subtract every cost
Kava OS per device per month, hardware purchase or VaaS fees, and payment costs. One-time hardware becomes a payback period; monthly costs come off every month.
Where the default numbers come from
Defaults are platform-wide results aggregated across 8Kava deployments over the trailing 12 months. They're averages, not promises, and each one belongs to a specific feature.
Revenue
- Revenue per device after a Kava Link retrofit
- +18% in the first 90 days, mostly from cashless acceptance and fewer stockouts
- Shrink vs. open honor-system micro-markets
- −62% after switching to Kava Cooler with locking doors
Operations
- Service visits per device per month
- −27% with pre-kitting and dynamic routing (Pro and above)
- Out-of-stock events
- −41% with Forecasting & Auto-Replenishment (Pro and above)
Fresh food and energy
- Fresh-food waste
- −33% with expiry-aware dynamic pricing (Pro and above)
- Energy per refrigerated unit
- −19% kWh with adaptive compressor scheduling on 8Kava refrigerated hardware
Costs
- Kava OS
- Core $19, Pro $39, Autopilot $69 per device per month; 15% off with annual billing
- Kava Link L2 retrofit
- $349 per machine, one time
- Payments
- Your own processor at no markup, or Kava Pay at interchange-plus 0.35% + $0.05
- Vending-as-a-Service
- 36-month term including hardware, Kava OS Pro and service, from $99 per month
50 legacy machines, run twice
An illustrative example, not a quote: 50 legacy snack machines, each selling $900 a month at a 50% gross margin, with 4 service visits per machine per month at $30 a visit. Each machine gets a Kava Link and Kava OS Pro, billed monthly, on the operator's own processor.
| At default rates | At half the defaults | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue lift | +18%: $8,100 more sales a month | +9%: $4,050 more sales a month |
| Added gross margin | $4,050 a month | $2,025 a month |
| Service visits saved | 54 of 200 visits: $1,620 a month | 27 of 200 visits: $810 a month |
| Kava OS Pro (50 × $39) | −$1,950 a month | −$1,950 a month |
| Net monthly change | +$3,720 | +$885 |
| Kava Link hardware (50 × $349) | $17,450 one time | $17,450 one time |
| Payback on hardware | Just under 5 months | About 20 months |
The +18% figure describes the first 90 days after a retrofit; the example holds it flat for simplicity. Card-processing fees on the new sales aren't shown. If your machines already accept cards, expect less of the lift.
Read payback first, then find the line doing the work
Payback tells you how long the one-time hardware takes to earn itself back. Net monthly change tells you what the program is worth after that. Both matter, but the most useful part of the result is the breakdown: which line is carrying the case.
If one assumption delivers most of the return, that's the one to test. In the example above, revenue lift supplies about 70% of the gains at default rates. Halve every rate and payback stretches from under 5 months to about 20. That isn't a reason to walk away. It's a reason to run a pilot before you sign for the whole fleet.
- Payback well inside a year: a strong case, still worth a pilot.
- Payback measured in years: compare VaaS, which turns hardware into a monthly fee.
- Negative net monthly change: the format or the plan doesn't fit this site yet.
What the calculator can't see
Whether you already take cards
Most of the +18% retrofit lift comes from cashless acceptance and fewer stockouts. If your machines already take cards, lower that rate.
Whether saved visits become saved money
Fewer visits pay off only if driver hours, fuel or a truck go somewhere else, such as new locations. Otherwise they're capacity, not cash.
Ramp-up time
Forecasts improve with data, and Kava Agent observes for 14 days before proposing autonomous actions. Month one won't look like month six.
Your format
The −62% shrink figure applies to open honor-system markets that move to locking Kava Coolers. A glass-front spiral machine has a different shrink profile.
Your product mix
Waste and energy savings apply only where you sell fresh food or run refrigerated units. A snacks-only route should leave them at zero.
Payment costs
New cashless sales carry card fees. With your own processor, your current rates apply; with Kava Pay, it's interchange-plus 0.35% + $0.05.
Which assumption are you most afraid to be wrong about?
Most ROI cases rest on one number. Find yours, cut it in half and run the math again. If the case survives, you have a decision. If it doesn't, you have a pilot: the 30-day free trial of Kava OS Pro covers up to 10 devices, which is enough to measure the number you were worried about.
Questions about the calculator
Where do the default rates come from?
They're platform-wide results aggregated across 8Kava deployments over the trailing 12 months, across more than 3,400 connected retail points. Each rate is tied to a specific feature and plan, listed in the assumptions above, so only count the ones your setup would actually include.
Is the result a quote?
No. It's an estimate built from your inputs and our averages. A quote comes from a site assessment, where we look at traffic, shifts, dwell time and format fit before recommending hardware.
How should I model Vending-as-a-Service?
Treat the VaaS fee as hardware, software and service in one monthly line, with no up-front purchase. Terms run 36 months and include Kava OS Pro. Payback matters less; net monthly change is the number to watch. See Vending-as-a-Service.
What about payment processing fees?
Bring your own processor at no markup and your current rates apply. Kava Pay runs at interchange-plus 0.35% + $0.05 per transaction. Neither adds a convenience fee for shoppers, so cashless prices don't need to rise.
How do I check the estimate against reality?
Run a pilot. The 30-day free trial of Pro covers up to 10 devices; legacy machines need a Kava Link. Our case studies show how we measure results against a site's own baseline.
Where to go next
Bring your spreadsheet. We'll bring ours.
Send us your fleet's real numbers and we'll walk through the estimate line by line, including the assumptions we'd challenge.