What does your coffee cost per cup?
A bag of coffee is a number of drinks. See what one costs to make, what share of the menu price that is, and what a dollar on the bag does to each cup. No signup.
Cost per drink
$1.08
$0.53 of it is coffee
Food cost
24.0%
of the $4.50 menu price
Gross margin
$3.42
76.0% per drink
Where the $1.08 goes
The last row is the one to bring to a wholesale conversation. A price change that looks large on the invoice is small in the cup, because a bag makes a lot of drinks.
Inside the 20–30% band commonly cited for a café's beverage cost of goods. Labour, rent and the machine come out of what is left.
The link holds every number above. Nothing is submitted or stored.
Sending this to an account? The link carries your bag price, and the café reads the increase in cents per cup.
Questions
The cup, from both sides of the table.
- How much coffee goes into one drink?
- A double espresso uses 18–20 g of ground coffee. A pour-over runs about 15 g for a 250 ml cup at a 1:16 ratio. Batch brew follows the 55–65 g per litre convention, which puts a 12 oz cup near 20 g. Weigh your own dose rather than trusting a default; two grams either way moves the cost of a drink by about ten percent.
- What does a cup of coffee cost a café to make?
- Less in coffee than most people assume. At $9.50 for a 12 oz bag, a double shot costs about 53 cents of coffee. Add 40 cents of milk and 15 cents for a cup and lid, and the latte costs a little over a dollar to make. The coffee is usually the smallest of the three once milk is involved, which is why a bag price feels large on the invoice and small in the cup.
- What food cost should a café aim for on coffee drinks?
- Commonly cited figures for a specialty café's beverage cost of goods, coffee and milk included, sit around 20–30% of the menu price, before labour and rent. Black coffee sits well under that; a large drink with an alternative milk sits near the top. Treat the band as a reference for a conversation, not a target — your rent and your market set what you can afford.
- Why should a roaster show this to wholesale accounts?
- Because a price change is easier to accept when it is stated in the unit the buyer sells. Two dollars more on a 12 oz bag is about eleven cents on an 18 g drink. Put that beside a $4.50 latte and the increase is under three percent of the menu price. The bag price is your number; the cost per cup is theirs, and the second one is the conversation.
- Does this include labour, rent, or the espresso machine?
- No. This is the cost of what goes in the cup — the food cost, in café terms. Labour, rent, equipment and payment fees come out of the gross margin the tool shows. A drink with a 75% gross margin can still lose money in a café with high rent and slow traffic; this tool tells you what the drink costs, not whether the café works.