The pint is the format that leaves your control. Everything else is either eaten in front of you or carried a short distance. A pint goes into a bag, into a car, into somebody's freezer, and whatever happens to it on the way happens without you.
That is the frame for choosing between plastic and paper, and it is a more useful one than price.
What plastic is for
White plastic pint containers have a rigid wall that holds shape in a delivery bag. If a meaningful share of your pints go out through a delivery platform, stacked against other orders and handled by someone who did not make them, rigidity stops being a nice-to-have.
The failure you are avoiding is a container that deforms under weight, breaks its seal, and arrives with a customer who then contacts the platform rather than you. That is a refund and a rating, over a container that cost pennies.
What paper is for
Paper pints carry a look that plastic does not. Glossy white takes a sticker cleanly, glossy black suits a dark counter, and there is a cow print that reads as dairy without any branding at all. If your pints are collected in person, sit in your own display freezer, or are photographed by customers, paper is doing work that rigidity cannot.
Paper also opens the compostable route, which plastic closes entirely. Whether that matters depends on questions we set out in compostable pints for takeaway, and the short version is that it only counts if the lid follows.
Check the lid before you compare prices
This is where the arithmetic usually goes wrong, and it goes wrong in both directions.
Plastic pints and their lids are sold separately, six hundred to a case each, so a case of containers needs a matching case of lids and the real unit cost is the pair rather than the container. Some paper pints, by contrast, are supplied with lids included. Comparing a container-only price against a container-and-lid price will lead you to the wrong answer every time, and it is the same trap we flagged on the shared paper lids in one lid for 8, 12 and 16 oz containers.
Most shops need both
This is usually where it lands, and it is not a cop-out. The two formats are answering different questions, so a shop with two channels reasonably runs two containers.
Plastic for delivery, paper for counter collection and display. It sounds like extra complexity, but it is one extra line and the rule for staff is simple: if it is going in a delivery bag, it goes in plastic. Nobody has to think about it after the first week.
Sizing beyond the pint
Once you have chosen a material, the ladder either side is worth knowing. Half-pint sizes cover single servings and sample packs, and quart and half-gallon formats handle family orders and party bookings, along the lines of the event thinking in serving parties from 16 oz cups.
Both materials and every size sit together in the pints and to-go container range.