Coffee Bean Annual Cost Calculator

The annual coffee bean cost depends on three numbers: cups per day, grams per cup, and price per pound.
The math is plain multiplication, but the inputs are the surprising part for most people.

annual_cost = cups_per_day × grams_per_cup × 365 × (price_per_lb / 453.6)

Standard brew ratios by method (grams of coffee per cup):

• Drip / pour-over: 60-70 g per liter, which works out to 11-12 g for a 6-oz cup and 14-17 g for a proper 8-oz mug
• French press: 60 g per liter, similar
• Espresso single shot: 7-9 g
• Espresso double shot: 16-20 g (this is what most “lattes” use)
• Aeropress: 10-15 g per 200-ml cup
• Cold brew: 100 g per liter (much stronger ratio because dilution follows)

Bean prices per pound, retail. These are ballpark figures from the US market and they move with the year, the country and the green-coffee market, so use them to sanity-check the number you type in, not as a substitute for it:

• Grocery store standard (Folgers, Maxwell House): $5-8/lb
• Trader Joe’s whole bean: $7-10/lb
• Costco Kirkland: $5-7/lb (often a great deal on a quality roast)
• Starbucks bagged: $11-14/lb
• Specialty roaster (Counter Culture, Stumptown): $18-25/lb
• Direct trade premium (Onyx, Heart): $24-35/lb

A worked example.
2 drip cups per day, 14 g each, $14/lb Starbucks-grade bagged beans.
Annual coffee weight: 2 × 14 × 365 = 10,220 g = 22.5 lb.
Annual cost: 22.5 × 14 = $315, which over 730 cups is 43 cents a cup.
Same consumption with $7/lb grocery beans: $158, or 22 cents a cup.
Step up to a $22/lb specialty roaster and the same habit costs $496, about 68 cents a cup.
So the whole range, from the cheapest supermarket tin to a serious roaster, spans roughly 45 cents a cup. All of it sits well under a $4 cafe drip, which is the comparison that actually decides anything.

Espresso drinkers consume more grams per drink but typically fewer drinks per day.
A daily double-shot latte uses 18 g, so 6,570 g/year = 14.5 lb.
At $20/lb specialty espresso beans, that is $290/year — about the same as drip drinkers spend, despite drinking less coffee.

A practical note on freshness.
Beans peak in flavor 5-21 days after roasting and fall off quickly after 60 days.
Buying a 5 lb bag from Costco is great for cost per pound but you will probably drink the last pound past the point where the beans are fresh.
Most heavy coffee drinkers settle on 1 lb bags every 2-4 weeks from a local roaster — the cost premium is 30-50% over Costco, but the cup quality is meaningfully better.

A subtle math gotcha.
The “12-cup” pot on most coffee makers uses 5-oz cups, not 8-oz cups.
A 12-cup pot is actually 60 oz of brewed coffee, or about 1.7 liters.
At the standard 60 g/L ratio, that is 100 g of beans per pot — much more than people realize, and much closer to “8 mugs of coffee” than “12 cups.”