The real numbers for putting decent coffee in an office: what it costs per person per month, which option suits which team size, and why the productivity argument is weaker than it looks.
First, let's be honest about the argument
You'll often read that good office coffee "pays for itself in productivity". That needs qualifying, because as stated it doesn't hold up.
What is well documented is that caffeine improves sustained attention and reaction time, particularly under fatigue or short sleep. But any coffee does that, including the bad stuff from a vending machine. The caffeine in specialty coffee doesn't outperform the caffeine in cheap coffee.
So the real argument is a different one, and it's good enough on its own: it's a highly visible perk, used several times a day, and it costs very little per person. There's no need to invent a productivity return for it.
The numbers per person
For a team drinking 2 coffees a day, 20 days a month — that is, 40 coffees per person per month:
| Option | Cost/cup | Per person/month |
|---|---|---|
| Specialty capsules | ~€0.62 | ~€25 |
| Whole bean, bean-to-cup | ~€0.25 | ~€10 |
| Ground, batch filter | ~€0.45 | ~€18 |
For a team of ten that's between €100 and €250 a month. Set against any other line in a company's budget, it's a small figure for something touched daily.
What suits which size
Up to 10 people · capsules
Zero maintenance, no arguments about who cleans it, and everyone makes their own when they want. It's the highest cost per cup, but at this size the absolute difference is small and convenience wins.
What does need solving is recycling: ten people at two coffees a day is 400 capsules a month. Worth setting up a collection point from the start rather than improvising later. It's in the compatibles guide.
10-30 people · bean-to-cup
This is where cost per cup starts to matter and the switch pays off. It grinds and brews on its own, so it still doesn't require anyone who knows how to make coffee, and the cost drops by more than half.
The trade-off: it needs proper periodic cleaning, and if nobody owns that responsibility it ends up producing stale coffee. Worth assigning explicitly to someone or contracting the servicing.
More than 30 people, or meeting rooms · batch filter
To serve a lot of people at once, a commercial filter brewer makes litres in one go. Lower cost per cup and no queue at the machine. It works well combined with an individual option for the rest of the day.
Three common mistakes
Buying coffee in enormous formats. A 5 kg sack looks like good value until you realise the office takes two months to get through it and the last kilo tastes of nothing. Monthly deliveries are better.
Forgetting decaf. There's always someone who avoids caffeine in the afternoon, or entirely. It's cheap to include and it shows everyone was thought about.
Not cleaning the machine. The most common failure and the most invisible. Oils go rancid and the coffee deteriorates so gradually that nobody notices; people simply stop using it. It's in common brewing mistakes.
And the water, again
If the office is in a hard-water area — much of the country — scale will kill the machine early and flatten the coffee. An inline filter costs little and extends equipment life considerably. We explain it in the article on water.
How we set it up
We supply offices with capsules, whole bean and ground, on volume-based rates with machine loan depending on consumption. Roasting in Almería means fast delivery within the province and coffee that arrives freshly roasted rather than after months of distribution.
Quotes with no obligation on the business page. If you also run a hospitality venue, the specifics are in this article.
