BUYING A POD FOR YOUR BUSINESS?
Looking to buy a Pod for your leisure and hospitality business?
A holiday pod can provide accommodation income for a leisure or hospitality business. The return depends on your location, nightly prices, bookings and full project costs. Use the calculator below to explore different scenarios for your own site.
Comfort for guests. Simple running-cost planning.
Explore a low-electricity-use example and our gas / LPG hot-water option, then use your own site costs in the payback calculator above.
Hot water
Gas / LPG boiler option
A practical hot-water option for your pod. We have had excellent experience using gas boilers for water heating at an operating holiday accommodation site.
Ask us about a suitable boiler for your project. Running costs depend on the boiler, your gas or LPG tariff and how much hot water guests use.
Optimistic electricity example
£2.45 / day
Electricity only
A low-use illustration using 10 kWh per day at 24.51p per kWh.
Gas / LPG, water and fixed charges are additional. This is an illustrative assumption, not measured pod consumption or a complete running-cost estimate. Actual use varies with weather, heating and guest use.
About this example & source
10 kWh × £0.2451 = £2.451, rounded to £2.45. The electricity price is the UK non-domestic average for April–June 2026, including the Climate Change Levy, published by DESNZ in September 2026. Your own tariff may differ. The 10 kWh daily usage is a planning assumption, not a published pod benchmark.
Source: DESNZ Quarterly Energy Prices, September 2026. Gas boiler efficiency depends on the model and installation; no specific efficiency or gas-cost saving is assumed here.
Explore your pod's earning potential
Build a simple annual budget for one holiday pod. Change the example figures to suit your location, accommodation and expected bookings.
Optimistic starting scenario: £60,000 investment, £220 per booked night and 285 booked nights per year (78.1% occupancy). The occupancy assumption is based on reported experience at an operating holiday accommodation site; the combined figures are an illustration, not verified trading results or a forecast for your site. The seasonal split is illustrative. Adjust all figures to suit your project. Use a consistent VAT basis for prices and costs. Include VAT you cannot recover; do not count VAT you must pay over as income.
Include the pod, delivery, installation, groundwork, furnishing and other setup costs.
Percentage of accommodation revenue.
Used to estimate the number of changeovers.
Cleaning, laundry and consumables, including your own labour where relevant.
For example, electricity, heating and guest supplies. Avoid counting cleaning twice.
Include insurance, maintenance, site costs, software, marketing and any staff costs not entered above.
Optional. Used for cash flow only; simple payback is calculated before finance.
Time to recover the total project investment from the estimated annual operating surplus, assuming the same results each year.
- Booked nights / annual occupancy
- Annual accommodation revenue
- Booking and payment fees
- Estimated annual changeover costs
- Other occupied-night costs
- Fixed annual costs
- Total operating costs
- Annual operating surplus before finance and tax
- Annual finance repayments
- Annual cash remaining after finance, before tax
- Average monthly cash remaining
What this estimate includes
Accommodation revenue equals peak price multiplied by peak booked nights, plus off-peak price multiplied by off-peak booked nights. Changeover costs use total booked nights divided by average stay length; this is an annual average and may include a fractional stay. Simple payback equals project investment divided by annual operating surplus before finance and tax. Finance repayments are deducted separately for cash flow, so borrowing is not counted twice in the payback calculation.
This is an illustration, not a guaranteed return or a valuation. It assumes a 365-day year and steady annual income and costs. Tax, depreciation, inflation, resale value, major replacement costs, planning restrictions and startup delays are not modelled. Add all relevant operating and setup costs yourself. A new site's first year may differ substantially.