Cost-Per-Cup Calculator

Good beans feel expensive by the bag, but cheap by the shot — and a home machine pays for itself faster than most people think. Enter your bag price and weight, your dose and how many you pull a day, and we'll show your real cost per cup, per month and per year, plus what you'd save against buying out. Honest arithmetic, no sign-up.

1. Your beans

Dose is the dry coffee you put in the basket per shot — typically 16–20 g for a double. A drink with two shots uses two doses.

2. How much you drink
3. Compare to buying out (optional)

What a coffee shop charges for the same drink, if you want to see the saving. Leave blank to skip the comparison.

Cost-per-cup questions, answered

How is the cost per shot worked out?

It's the price of the coffee you actually use: bag price ÷ bag weight gives a cost per gram, and we multiply that by your dose. So a £9, 250 g bag is 3.6p per gram, and an 18 g dose costs about 65p of coffee. Milk, water, power and the machine itself aren't included — this is the bean cost, which is the part that scales with every cup.

Does this include milk and electricity?

No — it's deliberately the coffee cost only, because that's the figure that's comparable bag-to-bag and the biggest variable for most people. A splash of milk and the power to heat the machine add a few pence; if you want the full picture, add those on top, but they're small next to the bean cost and the café comparison.

How can home espresso be so much cheaper than a café?

Because you're only paying for beans, not rent, staff and a barista's time. Even premium beans work out well under a pound a drink, while a café charges several pounds — so the per-drink saving is large, and over a year of daily coffees it typically dwarfs the cost of a decent home setup. The comparison box shows your own numbers.

What about the cost of the machine and grinder?

This tool shows running cost, not the upfront kit. To see a payback period, take what you'd spend on a machine and grinder and divide it by your daily saving versus buying out (from the comparison box) — for a daily coffee drinker that's often a matter of months, after which the savings are real money in your pocket.