Pizza Maths

Ordering a pizza used to be a hassle. Hunt down the leaflet, phone the number, recite the order, get them read in back to you, tell them your address, get them to read it back to you, put the phone down and hope for the best.

Now in the modern world, the apps make it all so simple. There is only one real dilemma left in the process… What size pizza gives you the best value for money?

Now to work of the surface area of a pizza, we can use (the units here will be pounds sterling and inches, as I’ve never seen a pizza in the UK specified in cms):

Well, pizza sizes are usually given but diameter, not radius, so it should actually be:

And actually the crust rim, which if you do eat all all you leave to last, takes up about half an inch at the edge. And taking the opposite edge into account too, that means we knock a full inch off the calculation:

Now unless you have a scientific calculation nearby when you order (actually, I usually do), some sort of handy table would be, erm, handy.
And while I’m doing this, why not plug in some prices to do everything in one go?

The prices I’m using are from Domino’s, and correct as of August 2021.


No real surprises there. Bigger pizzas are better.


And if you want the spreadsheet used to make this, to check your local pizza place, well it is here.

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