Is It Actually Cheaper to Make Your Own Pizza?
- Feb 27
- 8 min read
Ingredient costs quoted were accurate as of November 2024; however, they are likely to have increased since then.
How Much Does Homemade Pizza Really Cost Compared to Takeaway?
*All ingredient prices referenced here were accurate as of November 2024. They will have increased since then. Equally, supermarket and takeaway prices have risen too, so the comparison still holds.
If you’ve ever paid more than £20 for a takeaway pizza and felt slightly irritated once it arrived, you’re not alone.
It’s not that the pizza is terrible. It’s the moment you open the box and pause. The base feels thinner than expected. The toppings look lighter than the menu photo suggested. The delivery fee, service charge and tip have quietly pushed the total well beyond the headline price. What started as a quick midweek treat now feels like a surprisingly expensive decision.
And in the back of your mind, you know flour, yeast and tomato sauce are not luxury ingredients. You’ve seen mozzarella on offer. So when the receipt creeps towards £25 or more, it’s hard not to question the gap between what it costs to make and what it costs to buy.
I’ve worked in pizza restaurants. I’ve made thousands of pizzas. I’ve seen what goes into them and what they sell for. That doesn’t mean restaurants are doing anything wrong. They have wages, rent, utilities, drivers and tax to cover. But from a pure ingredient point of view, pizza has always been one of the most profitable items on a menu.
So the question is fair; is it actually cheaper to make your own pizza at home? In most cases, yes. And by more than most people expect!
The Garden Pizza Oven Phase
I love pizza. Enough to have had a wood-burning pizza oven built into my garden back in 2013, long before compact pizza ovens became mainstream.
It was huge. It was expensive. And it was brilliant.
We’d have friends round, dough rising in the kitchen, pizzas sliding in and out of the oven all evening. It turned dinner into an event.
When I got divorced, I left that house and the oven went with it. It did add value to the property, so it wasn’t wasted money. But I do miss it.
The good news is you don’t need a wood-fired oven to make good pizza. A standard home oven works perfectly well, althiough you can buy a decent dedicated pizza oven for about £100 on Amazon, so if you really like pizza, it might be worth investing in, but its far from essential!
What It Cost Me to Make Four Pizzas
Using November 2024 supermarket prices, I made four 12-inch thin pizzas for about £6.80 in total. That works out at roughly £1.70 per pizza.
That number actually flatters the cost slightly, because I froze two dough balls for another day and had enough sauce left over for a Bolognese the following evening.
The dough cost around £1 to make. Own-brand flour, a sachet of yeast, a small amount of sugar and salt, water from the tap and a little olive oil.
The sauce cost about £2 and covered four pizzas comfortably, with extra for another meal.
Cheese was the biggest expense, as expected. I deliberately chose a larger 500g bag of grated mozzarella because the price per kilo was significantly lower than smaller packs. Pepperoni was just over £1 and easily covered all four pizzas.
Even if ingredient prices have risen since 2024, takeaway prices have risen too. The relative gap remains.
Comparing It to Supermarket Pizza
At the time I checked, frozen supermarket pizzas ranged from under £1 to around £2 depending on brand and size. Fresh versions were slightly more.
They were smaller than my homemade 12-inch pizzas and, in my opinion, nowhere near as satisfying. Frozen pizza absolutely has its place for convenience and price. But in terms of size and flavour, homemade sits comfortably above it.
Comparing It to Delivery
When I compared prices, my nearest national pizza delivery chain, the one that starts with a D, was charging £26.49 for a single 13.5-inch pizza including delivery, even after a discount.
For less than that, I made four large pizzas at home! Of course, delivery pricing includes more than ingredients. You’re paying for convenience, staff, premises, marketing and drivers. That’s fair enough.
But if we’re talking purely about what goes into the food itself, the difference is striking.
Replacing just one takeaway a month with homemade pizza could save a few hundred pounds over a year.
How I Make Pizza at Home
The dough recipe doesn't need many ingredients:
Pizza dough Ingredients: (Remember to use a gift card cashback service to pay when buying your ingredients to save even more money!)
500g plain or bread flour
5g sugar
5g salt
1 package of active dry yeast
350 ml of warm water
30 ml olive oil (can be skipped)
Instructions:
In a large mixing bowl, combine the warm water and sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and let it sit for about 5 minutes or until it becomes foamy.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. If you have an electric food mixer, this step is easier.
Add the flour mixture to the yeast mixture. Stir with a wooden spoon until a shaggy dough forms. If you have a machine, add the dry ingredients to the mixer bowl and slowly add the water until the ingredients are well combined.
Transfer the dough onto a floured surface and knead for about 5-7 minutes until smooth and elastic. If the dough is too sticky, add a little more flour, about 1 tablespoon at a time, while kneading. With an electric mixer, beat it on a medium setting for about 5 minutes.
Shape the dough into a ball and place it in a greased bowl. Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel or plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place for about 1 to 2 hours, or until it has doubled in size.
After the dough has risen, punch down to release any air bubbles. Transfer it back to the floured surface and knead for another minute. Then, pop it back into the bowl, cover it, and let it rise again for about 30 minutes.
Divide the dough into six equal portions or balls, place them on a tray or plate, cover them again, and let them rest for 30 minutes. You can skip this step if you're short on time, but it does produce a better pizza, in my opinion.
Roll out each portion of dough into your desired pizza shape and thickness. You can use a rolling pin or stretch the dough with your hands. This recipe is designed to make a thinner-style pizza; for thicker pizzas, it will make 4, not 6.
Transfer the rolled-out dough onto a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet or pizza stone.
Brush the surface of the dough with olive oil to prevent it from becoming soggy.
Add your favourite pizza toppings, such as tomato sauce, cheese, vegetables, and meats. I like to use up the leftovers in the fridge for toppings, especially the last bits of cheese and vegetables. This saves money and prevents food waste.
Bake the pizza in the preheated oven for about 12-15 minutes or until the crust turns golden brown and the cheese is bubbly and melted.
Remove the pizza from the oven and let it cool for a few minutes before slicing and serving.
I enjoy making my own pizza sauce. For convenience, you can, of course, buy this in a supermarket; Tesco offers its own brand 200g jar of pizza sauce for £1.65, which is fine.
Below is my recipe for the homemade pizza sauce I like to make:
2x 500g cartons of tomato Passata - Tesco offer a carton for 69p each
2x teaspoons dried garlic or about 5 cloves of fresh
2x teaspoons dried oregano
1x teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
Splash of vinegar - apple cider is best, but any vinegar will work. Lemon also works if you don't have vinegar.
This sauce cost me about £2 to make. Not only did it make 4 pizzas, it was also enough to use for a Bolognese sauce the next day, when mixed with another carton of Passata, so you could halve the recipe if you don't need as much.
Method:
Chop or crush the garlic if you're using fresh, and then add all the ingredients to a saucepan and stir well. Simmer the sauce over low heat for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to ensure the sauce is well combined. Avoid adding a lid to the saucepan, as you want some of the water to evaporate, allowing the sauce to thicken.
Taste the sauce; if it's a little bland, add some extra salt or spices if you think it needs more flavour. The cooking normally enhances the flavour perfectly, but taste is a very individual thing.
Allow the sauce to cool. It doesn't need to be cold, just not boiling hot!
Your sauce is done, so now for the toppings.
Mozzarella is obviously an essential part of the pizza! Prices for this vary massively. I went to Tesco and they had 500g of Creamfields grated mozzarella for £2.99, which works out at £5.98kg. Their Tesco-branded grated mozzarella was £2.65 for a 250g bag, working out at £10.60 a kilo, so a pretty big difference; needless to say, I went with the Creamfields version!
Pepperoni, how could I not have put pepperoni on the pizza right!? That worked out at £1.05 for a Tesco own-brand, 110g pack, which was plenty for all 4 pizzas.
I could have then added extras to the pizza if I wanted, such as onion and veggies from the fridge, but I stuck with just the pepperoni. Pizzas are a great way to use up leftovers!
In total, I spent around £6.80 on ingredients. That made me four pizzas, so £1.70 each. It also left me with two extra dough balls in the freezer for another day, and half the sauce was saved for the next day's dinner, so in reality, the cost was lower than £1.70 per pizza.
The pizzas were 12 inches, and as a thin pizza, they served 1 pizza per person; however, my partner only ate half, so that was her lunch for the next day.
How does that compare with supermarket pizza prices? Tesco offered a frozen Tesco pepperoni pizza, 350g, for £1.65, and a Hearty Food frozen pepperoni pizza (314g) for just 97p, but, although cheaper, these are smaller and absolutely not as nice as homemade pizza! They also offered a fresh version, 272g, for £2.10 each, which is twice the price of the cheapest frozen pizza and again not as nice as homemade, or as big.
Planning Makes It Even Better Value
If the main advantage of takeaway is speed, there’s an easy workaround. Double the dough recipe, and make some extra pizzas. Bake them until almost done, then freeze. When you need a quick meal, defrost and heat for about ten minutes; in fact you can of course reheat from frozen! You end up with near-takeaway convenience at a homemade cost.
So Is It Worth It?
Making pizza from scratch does take more effort than tapping an app. It requires a bit of planning.
But the savings are real. You’re often saving £15 to £20 in a single evening.
There’s nothing wrong with ordering takeaway occasionally. I still do. But once you understand the cost difference, you can choose deliberately rather than by default.
Homemade pizza is one of the simplest ways to eat well without overspending.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it actually cheaper to make your own pizza?
Yes, in most cases. Based on my own cost breakdown, four large homemade pizzas cost less than one delivered takeaway. Even with rising prices, the gap remains significant.
How much does it cost to make a pizza at home in the UK?
Using own-brand ingredients, a 12-inch thin pizza can cost around £1.50 to £2 in ingredients. Cheese is usually the biggest expense. The dough itself costs very little.
Why is takeaway pizza so expensive compared to homemade?
You are paying for more than flour and cheese. Delivery pizzas include wages, rent, utilities, drivers and marketing. The ingredient cost is relatively low, but the overheads are high.
Is homemade pizza healthier than takeaway?
It can be. When you make it yourself, you control the amount of cheese, oil and salt. You can add more vegetables and adjust portion size more easily.
Is frozen pizza cheaper than making your own?
Frozen pizza can be cheaper upfront, but it is often smaller and lower quality. Homemade pizza usually offers better size and flavour for a modest increase in cost.
Can you freeze homemade pizza dough?
Yes. Extra dough balls freeze well. You can also freeze part-baked pizzas and reheat them later for quick meals.
