Advertised Speed vs. Finished Output

When we were shopping for pre-roll equipment, one of the first questions we asked was the same one everybody asks: How many can it produce per hour?

It's a fair question. You need some way to compare machines, and hourly output seems like the obvious place to start. The problem is that we gave that number far more weight than it deserved.

A machine can genuinely hit its advertised hourly rate and still leave you well short of the production number you built your purchase around.

We learned that after accounting for material preparation, loading, adjustments, cleaning, changeovers, rework and all the other things that apparently don't exist inside a brochure.

That's the difference we're digging into in Part 2: advertised speed versus the good, finished pre-rolls sitting on the table when everyone is ready to go home.

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A machine can genuinely hit its advertised hourly rate and still leave you well short of the production number you built your purchase around.

The eight-channel JuanaRoll is a good place to start because there are several published production numbers available for it.

Canapa advertises the machine at up to 4,000 pre-rolls per hour. It also publishes an eight-hour output of up to 32,000.

The math is simple enough: 4,000 per hour × 8 hours = 32,000 pre-rolls.

But Paxiom also published a labor analysis estimating that three people could produce 50,000 pre-rolls over 2.5 eight-hour production days. That works out to approximately 20,000 per day.

There's an important footnote attached to that estimate: It's based on field results using ideal product, cones and environment.

Then we found a Packaging World case study about Nature's Grace and Wellness, a company actually operating the JuanaRoll. The company reported averaging approximately 13,000 to 16,000 pre-rolls per day with two machine operators, depending on the strain.

Those pre-rolls came off the machine filled, tamped, twisted and cut, ready for secondary packaging. The retail packaging was still being handled by hand.

So we have three numbers connected to the same machine:

• Up to 4,000 per hour
• Approximately 20,000 per day in Paxiom's labor analysis
• Approximately 13,000 to 16,000 per day at one customer facility

None of those numbers necessarily disproves the others.

In fact, Nature's Grace and Wellness considered the machine a successful investment. Before installing the JuanaRoll, the company was producing around 5,000 pre-rolls per week with nine people. Afterward, it was approaching 100,000 per week with two machine operators.

That's a serious production improvement.

The reason we're sharing the different numbers isn't to make the JuanaRoll look bad. It's to show how much more useful a customer's daily production range can be than a maximum hourly rating.

The strain affected the result. Cleaning affected it. The number of people involved affected it. What happened after the pre-roll left the machine affected it. The 4,000-per-hour number may be completely accurate. It just doesn't tell the entire story by itself.

And the JuanaRoll isn't some strange exception. The same difference between hourly capacity and daily production shows up when you look at other machines.

Hefestus advertises the AuraX at 2,000-plus pre-rolls per hour with one operator, depending on the machine configuration and material type. Multiply that by eight and you get 16,000-plus pre-rolls per shift.

In Hefestus' own Seed & Smith case study, however, the company reports daily production of 10,000 to 15,000 pre-rolls with two trained operators.

That was still a huge win for Seed & Smith. The company had previously been producing approximately 1,200 to 1,500 per day, so full automation helped it increase output significantly.

But once again, the documented customer range gives a buyer something the maximum hourly number doesn't. It provides a clearer picture of what one company was actually able to accomplish inside a working facility.

The Blackbird presents the numbers a little differently.

RollPros publishes an output of approximately 900 straight-rolled joints per hour and says that figure is based on actual customer data. Straight eight-hour math would put that at 7,200 joints.

On its homepage, however, RollPros promotes the Blackbird at 5,000 joints per shift.

We actually appreciate that distinction. RollPros isn't simply multiplying 900 by eight and pretending nothing else happens during the day. The company also recommends allowing 30 to 45 minutes for cleaning after a custom run or approximately eight hours of operation.

Custom Cones USA's 2025 equipment report lists the Blackbird at 900 per hour as well, although we couldn't find a reputable third-party study documenting its finished, accepted output across a complete shift.

That doesn't mean the 5,000-per-shift number is wrong. It means it should be identified for what it is: the manufacturer's published shift figure rather than an independently verified production result.

We'd still want to know exactly what the 5,000 includes. Are those finished joints? Did they pass weight and quality control? Were rejects and rework removed? Does it include setup and cleanup?

The hourly number tells you how fast the machine can move while it's running. The shift number starts telling you what the production day may actually look like.

The PreRoll-Er 200 is currently advertised at up to 1,300 pre-rolls per hour. The machine weighs, fills, compacts, closes, cuts and performs a final weight check with a reject station. On paper, 1,300 per hour works out to 10,400 over eight hours.

The manufacturer also publishes a reject rate below 1.9% under what it calls “optimal uptime.”

Custom Cones USA's equipment report includes a comment from one PreRoll-Er operator who said they had hit rates as high as 1,400 per hour. That sounds impressive, but notice the wording again: They had hit that rate. It doesn't tell us how long they maintained it or how many accepted pre-rolls were produced by the end of the day.

Another operator quoted in the same report said their company had six PreRoll-Er 200 machines and loved them, but added that they were “definitely not plug and play.”

That may be one of the most believable descriptions of commercial cannabis equipment we've ever read.

A machine can work well, produce a quality product and still require experienced operators, dialing-in time and a fair amount of attention. Those things can all be true at once.

We couldn't find a documented third-party full-shift result for the PreRoll-Er 200 either. So the best publicly supported number we have is the current advertised maximum of 1,300 per hour — or 10,400 using straight eight-hour math.

Whether that turns into 10,400 finished, accepted pre-rolls during a normal production day is the exact question a buyer still needs answered.

There's another reason these numbers aren't a clean comparison: The machines aren't all producing the same type of pre-roll.

The JuanaRoll figure we're discussing is based on pre-formed cones. The original Blackbird produces straight-rolled joints from rolls of paper. Producing full-sized blunts requires RollPros' separate Blackbird XXL system.

AuraX publishes capabilities for cones, straights and blunts. The PreRoll-Er 200 supports conical and cylindrical pre-rolls, with tooling and options depending on the format.

Producing 5,000 straight-rolled joints and producing 32,000 filled-and-closed cones are different manufacturing processes. The paper is different. Loading and closing are different. Changeovers are different. The things that can slow production down are different.

So when someone tells you how many pre-rolls a machine produces, the next question should probably be: What kind of pre-rolls?

We're only touching on that here because it changes how the output figures should be compared. In Part 8, we'll get much deeper into format and SKU flexibility — cones, straights, blunts, different sizes, changeovers and what happens when your customers want something the equipment wasn't built to produce.

For now, make sure the production number being presented actually applies to the product you plan to sell.

There's also one very large number sitting quietly behind all of this: the equipment price.

The eight-channel JuanaRoll, AuraX, Blackbird and PreRoll-Er 200 are all equipment investments north of $200,000.

That doesn't make any of them bad machines. It makes understanding exactly what they produce, and how much they produce during a normal day, a lot more important.

A machine may create enough volume and labor savings to justify every penny. But that calculation needs to be based on the format you sell, the complete crew you need and the good, finished pre-rolls you can reliably produce.

The difference between an advertised maximum and normal finished output can completely change the payback period on a purchase this large. At that level, asking what the production number includes isn't nitpicking. It's basic math before writing a very large check.

Spending more than $200,000 doesn't automatically make a machine the wrong investment. It just makes every assumption more expensive.

We're going to stop short of doing the full labor and ROI calculation here because each deserves more than a couple of paragraphs.

In Part 3, we'll look closely at the “one-operator” claim and who else may be working upstream and downstream. In Part 4, we'll calculate true output per person instead of judging efficiency by crew size alone.

Then, in Part 5, we'll put everything together around a 500,000-unit monthly order — equipment cost, crew size, labor hours, production days and how long each system would need to run.

For now, the point is simpler: Before using an hourly production number to justify a $200,000-plus purchase, make sure you understand what that number represents.

Looking back, this is where we made our mistake. We spent too much time asking what the machine could produce at full speed and not enough time asking what the complete production day would look like.

When we were producing pre-rolls ourselves, we had equipment that could hit the advertised pace for stretches of the day. Watching it run during those stretches was exciting.

Then we counted what was actually sitting on the table after material preparation, loading, adjustments, jams, cleaning and rework.

That was a different number.

Manufacturers outside the cannabis industry already have a way of looking at this. NIST describes overall equipment effectiveness using availability, performance and quality.

In plain English: Did the machine run when it was supposed to? How fast did it run while it was running? How much good product did it make?

That last question gets skipped a lot in pre-roll equipment conversations.

The number on a machine counter may tell you how many units passed through the system. It doesn't automatically tell you how many were within weight tolerance, closed correctly, visually acceptable and ready to move forward without someone fixing them.

Before comparing output, find out whether the number represents filled pre-rolls, filled-and-closed pre-rolls or units that have already passed quality control. Ask whether rejects and rework are included. Find out if setup, material refills, adjustments, cleaning and changeovers are part of the shift calculation.

Then count everyone involved — not only the person standing beside the machine.

These questions aren't meant to beat up the manufacturer. We build machines ourselves, and we know how much production can vary between flower, operators and facilities.

The point is to compare the same number to the same number.

Equipment demonstrations create an unusual problem in cannabis. For most buyers, bringing their own flower to an out-of-state demo isn't a realistic option. You can't exactly throw a few pounds of your stickiest strain in the trunk and drive it across state lines because you have a machine appointment.

That means you need to do more than watch a polished demonstration using material selected by the manufacturer.

Talk to companies producing products and formats similar to yours. More importantly, talk to the people who operate the equipment every day — not only the person who approved the purchase.

Ask what production looked like during the first month, what it looks like now and what had to change along the way. Ask about the adjustments, cleanup, rework and strange little problems that never seem important until they eat half a shift.

Whenever possible, see the equipment running inside a real production facility.

That's exactly what we try to arrange at FlexPak. We connect serious buyers with the closest FlexPak producer we can find so they can see the system working and talk directly with somebody who uses it.

Not a sales rep explaining what should happen. An operator showing you what does happen.

If you're in Oklahoma, we can come to your licensed facility and run a demonstration using your product. We've also had producers travel from other states to our facility to watch a full production run.

They can't bring their cannabis across state lines, but they can watch the setup, loading, packing, closing, changeovers and cleanup. They can see what comes off the machine and what the complete production process actually looks like.

That's very different from watching the fastest five minutes of the day.

No demonstration will perfectly recreate your production floor. But seeing a machine working inside a real facility gets you much closer to reality than watching it run alone in a showroom.

When you leave, you should have a reasonable idea of what an average production day looks like — not just the best day or the fastest hour.

Then build your financial model around a conservative range.

Nobody who has worked with cannabis should promise that every strain will behave exactly the same. You just need enough real information to decide whether the machine can realistically finish your orders.

If every answer somehow circles back to the fastest advertised hour, that tells you something too.

We spoke with one producer who believed the machine they purchased would easily cover a specific daily production target. The advertised hourly rate looked like more than enough.

Once the complete crew, normal downtime and rework were included, the number of accepted pre-rolls at the end of the day came in much lower than expected.

We hold our own production figures to this same standard.

When FlexPak publishes an eight-hour output number, we're talking about packed-and-closed pre-rolls produced with standard material during a normal shift that includes setup, cleaning and changeover time.

Even then, we call them “up to” numbers.

Final accepted output comes after the producer applies its own weight, appearance and quality standards. Different flower behaves differently. We'd rather say that plainly than pretend otherwise.

Hourly speed still has value. It tells you what a machine is mechanically capable of doing. It just shouldn't be the only number used to build a production schedule, labor plan or equipment ROI.

Look at the whole day, the complete crew and everything that still needs to happen after the machine is done. Then count the good pre-rolls you can actually move into the next stage of production.

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The point is to compare the same number to the same number.

Because if your financial model is based on the machine's best hour multiplied by eight, you may not have a production plan. You may have a very expensive best-case scenario.

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You may not have a production plan. You may have a very expensive best-case scenario.