Do the maths yourself
Move the three sliders and see how much coffee is in your cup.
Coffee · Everything else: milk, staff, premises, equipment
- Coffee cost in the cup
- €0.45
- Share of the price
- 18%
- If coffee goes up €10/kg
- +€0.18 per cup
This only counts the beans. It does not include milk, cups, power, water, staff or rent.
And the rest of the money?
We do not invent percentages. These are the costs every café has:
The beans
What you calculated above.
Roasting and packing
If the café buys roasted coffee, this is already inside the price per kilo. If the café roasts its own: roaster, weight loss, bags and transport.
Milk
In a coffee with milk it can weigh as much as the beans.
Staff
Training, hours behind the bar, dialling in the machine every morning.
Premises
Rent, power, water, licences. In Madrid, the most variable cost.
Equipment
Machine, grinders, water filters and their maintenance.
€3 against €2.50
A pioneer of specialty coffee in Madrid described their menu in 2025: a coffee with milk at €3, against €2.50 at a traditional bar.
That is a difference of 50 cents.
In those 50 cents fit: beans with a known origin, a recent roast and someone who can explain it to you.
This is one specific example from September 2025, not an average price for Madrid.
Source: El Independiente.
5 signs the price makes sense
Tick the ones you find. If you tick 4 or 5, you are paying for something real.
Tick the signs you find.
If coffee gets dearer, how much does the cup rise?
- The price of green coffee is very volatile.
- In 2023, Caffènation, a roaster in Belgium and the Netherlands, raised the price of its roasted coffee by an average of €3/kg.
- At 18 g per espresso, €3/kg is about 5 cents a cup. That is our own calculation; the roaster talks about 3 cents at 100 cups per kilo.
- The beans are only part of the price, so a rise in coffee is barely noticeable in each cup.
Source: Perfect Daily Grind (2023), interviews with Caffènation and Bonanza Coffee.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Another question? Write to us →01Why does it cost more than coffee at a regular bar?
For the beans, the freshness and the work of the person who makes it. The beans are only part of the price.
02How much should specialty coffee cost in Madrid?
There is no official price. What you can check are the five signs above.
03Does paying more mean better coffee?
Not automatically. A high price with no origin, no date and no explanation is just a high price.
04Is it cheaper to make it at home?
Almost always, once you buy a scale, a grinder and a dripper. See the calculator in our guides.