Recently, after using Nespresso capsules for a year and realizing just how much making coffee with this method was costing my wife and I, I started to calculate how much these capsules cost versus other coffee making methods.
And doing this calculation caused me to purchase a Jura E8. Basically I learned that we could save at least $10-$20 per week if we switched to buying coffee beans instead of coffee capsules.
And if we save $20 per week for a year or two, then we would save more than enough money to buy a fancy espresso machine like the Jura E8!
So let’s do some basic math.
Don’t worry, it is not complicated math. Just multiplication.
And of course the price of coffee capsules and beans where you live may vary, so we are using the prices from Amazon in this post (which if you click on may make us a buck or two) because everyone should have access to these prices.
How Much Do Each of these Coffees Cost? 
First off, let’s establish what we’re actually comparing here.
- Plain coffee beans (we’re using the highest ranked beans on Amazon, the Lavazza Super Crema)
– these beans cost $22.99 for 2.2 pounds or 1 kilogram.
– $0.65 per ounce
– - Nespresso capsules (we’re using these Nespresso capsules)
– $0.80 per capsule
When searching for the per ounce prices the Nespresso capsules make it really hard to find how much coffee comes in each capsule.
They even have something in the main product description that says “brews 1.35 ounce”.
To me this is a useless thing to say. No one cares about the specific volume of brewed coffee. We care about if we have a full cup of coffee or an espresso, or not. I think they put this in there to make you think each capsule has 1.35 ounces of coffee in it. But they don’t at all.
The Nespresso capsules have five paragraphs of descriptions of the product at the top of the product page, but still do not tell you how much coffee is in each capsule. Wow.
Even in the product details Nespresso does not include how little coffee is in their capsules. They again use “1.35 ounces” which is how big of an espresso each capsule brews. This number is included in the title.
This post began as a product comparison showing you how which coffee methods are the cheapest.
Now it is a hunt for how much coffee is in each Nespresso capsule. I can’t believe they don’t show you this. On their Amazon page they don’t include it.
I can’t even find out how many grams are in each capsule after downloading the image of the product and zooming in. They do clearly show that you can make a 1.35 ounce espresso with it though.
Ok, enough how Nespresso doesn’t tell you how much coffee is actually in a Nespresso capsule. I will weigh one out myself when I get home to find out.
Annual Cost of Drinking Two Nespresso Capsules Per Day
If you drink two Nespresso capsules in the morning you spend $0.80 each. So $1.60 total per day.
That adds up to $584 per year. This excludes sales tax. So it’s actually more like $600-$650, depending on your state’s sales tax.
I personally was drinking 3-4 of these capsules per day. And sometimes I would waste one if I forgot I made one. So I was spending at least $1,000 per year (I llve in Switzerland so the cost was much higher for me than in the U.S.)
Let’s look at how much it costs to just buy the Lavazza coffee that I mentioned above.
Annual Cost of Drinking Lavazza Every Day
The Lavazza coffee comes in one kilogram or 2.2 pound packages. For $22.99.
The American standard size cup of coffee is supposed to contain ten grams of coffee.
So each package of this Lavaza coffee contains 100 cups worth of coffee. And since it costs $24.40 or so after sales tax, it costs $0.24 per cup.
If you drink two cups per day, then your per day cost of coffee is $0.48. Annually, this is about $175. And of course if you drink more like four cups a day like I do then your annual cost is about $350.
Comparing the Annual Cost of Lavazza and Nespresso Capsules
Ok so comparing the two we have the annual costs of Nespresso capsule of at least $600 and $175 for Lavazza coffee. Both of these assume a 6% sales tax in your state and that you drink two cups per day.
This means that you could save $425 dollars per year if you switch to a non-Nespresso capsule method of making coffee.
This is a whopping 71% savings.
That means that buying beans for roughly $23 per kilogram or $11-$12 per pound or roughly 70% cheaper could save you some serious dough every year.
If you drink more than two cups per day like I do then the comparison is even starker. You would save even more money if you switch to buying ground coffee or coffee beans.