Unit Economics: What One Station Really Earns
Growth numbers flatter everyone. The question that decides whether your network survives is smaller and harsher: does a single station, in a single venue, earn back its cost and then keep earning? That is unit economics, and the arithmetic fits on a napkin.
The revenue side
Take a conservative European baseline: 2 rentals per station per day at an average ticket of €2. That is roughly €120 per month per station. A great venue will triple it; a poor one will halve it, which is exactly why per-station tracking matters more than network averages.
The cost side
- Venue share: typically 10–30% of rental revenue, sometimes a flat monthly fee instead.
- Payment processing: around 1.5–3% plus fixed fees per transaction, depending on your acquirer.
- Software: your platform subscription, spread across all active stations.
- Field operations: occasional rebalancing, cleaning, swapping worn powerbanks; small per station in a dense network, painful in a scattered one.
Payback, honestly calculated
With hardware at factory-direct prices, a mid-size station plus its powerbanks typically returns its cost in 6–12 months at the baseline above, faster in strong venues. Run the pessimistic case too: at 1 rental per day, payback stretches beyond 18 months, which tells you a weak venue is not a waiting game but a relocation decision.
The three levers that move the number
First, utilisation: moving a station from a dead corner to a busy bar is free revenue. Second, average ticket: daily caps and event pricing raise it without scaring users. Third, hardware cost: negotiating 15% off your station price shortens payback by weeks. Everything else is noise by comparison.
Make it a habit: review a per-station league table monthly, relocate the bottom decile, and your fleet average will take care of itself.
