In a café every cup costs very little, which is why almost nobody costs it. A latte is a few grams of coffee, some milk and a cup. But you sell hundreds a week, and every cent repeats. The shop also costs the same at 3 pm, when it is empty, as at 8 am, when there is a queue out the door. What matters is what each drink leaves you and how many you need to sell each day to pay the rent, the barista and yourself.
Where the money slips away in a café
- Grams of coffee. If every barista doses by eye, a shot can take 16 g or 21 g. With speciality beans, that gap shows at the end of the month.
- Milk. Over-steamed milk poured away, the jug left at close, cartons past their date.
- Cup, lid, sleeve and stirrer. For takeaway, the disposables can cost about half as much as the coffee.
- Remakes. The shot that pulled wrong, the order that came out as the wrong drink.
- Fixed costs per day. Rent, wages, your own pay, the machine lease, power and water. You pay them whether you sell 40 cups or 150.
The guide on what a cup of coffee costs to make goes drink by drink.
Worked example: a takeaway latte at $4.50
You weighed your dose and measured your milk jug. From your own invoices, each takeaway latte costs:
| Item | Working | Per cup |
|---|---|---|
| Coffee | 18 g at $25 per kg | $0.45 |
| Milk | 200 ml at $1.40 per litre | $0.28 |
| Cup, lid and sleeve | $0.22 | |
| Sugar, stirrer and napkin | $0.05 | |
| Cost per cup | $1.00 |
You sell it at $4.50. Each latte leaves you 4.50 − 1.00 = $3.50.
Your fixed costs per day: rent $130, barista wages $140, your own pay $90, machine lease and servicing $20, power, water and card terminal $40. Total: $420.
- If you only sold lattes: 420 ÷ 3.50 = 120 cups a day.
- But you also sell americanos at $3.50 that cost 0.45 + 0.22 + 0.05 = $0.72 and leave $2.78.
- If half your sales are americanos, the average drink leaves (3.50 + 2.78) ÷ 2 = $3.14, and you need 420 ÷ 3.14 = 133.8, so 134 cups a day.
Your sales mix moves your daily target. That is why you need to know what each drink leaves you, not only its price.
These prices are before sales tax. Check your local tax rules for what to add.
The numbers that matter most
Cost per drink. One for every size and every drink on the board, with disposables included for takeaway. The guide on cups, lids, straws and ice shows why they weigh so much on cheaper drinks.
Cups a day to cover the café. Fixed costs per day divided by what the average drink leaves. The guide on café break-even works through it, and the break-even calculator gives you the number per day and per month.
What goes with the coffee. A muffin, a cookie or a toastie with the drink raises what each customer leaves. The guide on drinks, sides and extras covers how to offer them without giving margin away.
Milk and bean prices. Your two big inputs. Compare pack sizes with the unit price comparison tool, and read the guide on costing milk, eggs, butter and cheese to cost milk by the millilitre.
Resold drinks. Bottled water and sodas take fridge space and power. The guide on what margin makes sense on resold drinks helps you price them.
How to keep track
Every day: cups sold per drink, milk poured away and remakes. Every week: what you paid for beans and milk. If beans go up, recost each drink and see how far your daily target moves. The guide on how often to update your costs gives simple rules.
Do it with the calculator
The food cost calculator costs one recipe at a time and saves nothing, so note the result or copy the link. You can treat a bag of beans or a day's milk as one batch: enter the cups it makes as units, coffee and milk as ingredients with what you pay and what you use, and the cup with lid as packaging per unit. It returns the cost per cup and what each one leaves you.