Coffee cost per cup calculator: pods, beans and the machine size you need

Every number here is a calculation, not a quote. Beans are dosed at 55 grams of coffee per liter of water, the SCA's reference ratio. Pods are counted at one per mug up to 12 oz and two for a 16 oz travel mug, because a single pod stretched to 16 oz tastes like warm water.

The machine is the small cost. Spread a $350 brewer over five years of daily use and it adds about 19 cents a day, and a household drinking two or more mugs a day spends more than that on the pod premium alone. The difference between a budget Mr. Coffee and a Moccamaster is roughly what a four-mug pod habit costs extra in a year and a quarter. That's still a fair argument for a good drip brewer, if a less dramatic one than you'll read elsewhere.

All rows use the same defaults: beans at $17 per 32 oz bag, pods at 48 cents. Change either in the calculator above to see your own numbers.

The office row shows how fast the gap grows with headcount. Eight people on pods instead of a shared pot is roughly the price of a nice espresso machine every year.

1. Mug size in ounces times 29.57 gives milliliters of water.
2. Milliliters times 0.055 gives grams of coffee at the SCA ratio.
3. Grams times (bag price divided by bag weight in grams) gives the bean cost per mug.
4. Pod cost per mug is the pod price, doubled for a 16 oz mug.
5. Cost per mug times mugs per day times 365 gives the yearly cost.

A 1 lb bag is 453.6 grams. At 16.3 grams per 10 oz mug, that's about 28 mugs from one bag, which is why bean drinkers buy the 2 lb bags.

Want a stronger cup? Raise the dose to 60 grams per liter and costs rise about 9 percent. Weaker at 50 grams, they fall by the same amount. Either way, store-brand beans stay under pods.

The default prices come from listings logged on Oct. 28, 2026. A 2 lb bag of store-brand whole beans sets the bean number, and big boxes of K-Cups set the pod number. Prices on these move every week, so treat the defaults as a starting point and type in what you actually pay.

Starbucks is here for a reason. It's the bean most people mentally price pods against, and brewed at the SCA's full strength it costs about what a pod does, which is the most useful single fact on this page. We left out one result from the same pod search, a mushroom-blend pod at roughly three times the price of the others, because it sells on health claims this site doesn't evaluate.

For the cheapest machine to pair with these numbers, see the best budget coffee maker. Pod households should read Keurig alternatives, and teams can size up with the best coffee maker for office use.