Coffee cost and price calculator

What a flat white, latte or long black really costs you, from beans and milk to the cup and lid. See what you keep at your menu price once GST comes out, the price that hits your target margin, and what a small rise would add up to over a year.

Free, no sign-upRuns in your browserChecked 28 October 2026

Your coffee

Milk coffee covers a flat white, latte or cappuccino. Black is a long black or espresso.

What kind of coffee?
How is it served?
Which size?8, 12 and 16 oz cups

Your prices

From your supplier invoices and your menu board.

$
$
As it is on your menu board, GST included
$
Roughly. Used for the yearly figures.
More options20 g of coffee, 270 ml of milk, cup and lid $0.26, a 70% target margin.
Weigh what goes in the basket
g
Shots in each drink?
Small8 ozRegular12 ozLarge16 oz
How much milk?ml poured
Purging, dialling in, remakes
%
Left in the jug, poured away
%
Small8 ozRegular12 ozLarge16 oz
What does a cup cost?each, ex GST$$$
$
$0 for double-wall cups
$
$
The share of the price before GST left after the cup's cost. Coffee suppliers often suggest 75 to 80%.%
days

A regular takeaway milk coffee costs you

$1.79

66.6% margin, under 70%

It sells for $5.90, which is $5.36 once GST comes out.

  • Coffee (20 g)$0.84
  • Milk (270 ml)$0.66
  • Cup and lid$0.26
  • Sugar, stirrer, napkin$0.03

At $5.90

You keep a cup+$3.57
Gross margin66.6%
Price for a 70% margin$6.60
Including GST, on this size$
20c50c$1$1.50
You keep per cup (GST out)+$0.45
Per year, at 200 a day$28,364

You'd have to lose 11.3% of these cups, about 23 a day, before the rise left you worse off.

What each size costs to make (takeaway)

Each milk coffee, split into its parts. Tap a column for the detail.

$3.00$2.00$1.00$0.00
  • Coffee
  • Milk
  • Cup and lid
  • Extras

Use these numbers in another tool

Opens the other calculator with your figures already in.

What a loyalty card costs youWith your regular dine-in price and costHow much coffee to orderKilos a week at your dose and volume

Margins are worked out on the price before GST: one eleventh of every coffee you sell goes to the ATO. Defaults are examples from 2026 research (see below the tool); use your own invoices.

How to use it

  1. 01Start with your invoices
    Pick the drink and size, then put in what your roaster charges per kilo, what you pay for milk per litre, your menu price and roughly how many you sell a day.
  2. 02Fine-tune if you like
    More options has the dose, the milk you pour for each size, your waste, cups and lids, and your target margin, all filled in with typical figures. Weigh and measure once rather than guessing.
  3. 03Then read the answer
    What the cup costs, what you keep, the price for your target margin, and what a price rise would add up to. Switch the size to see the others.

How to read the answer

The default is a regular takeaway milk coffee. The waste figures, 5% for coffee and 10% for milk, are starting assumptions rather than industry figures: track one week of waste and use your own.

What a regular takeaway costs
Coffee: 20 g at $40 a kilo, plus 5% waste
$0.84
Milk: 270 ml at $2.20 a litre, plus 10% waste
$0.66
Cup 20c and lid 6c, before GST
$0.26
Sugar, stirrer, napkin
$0.03
Cost of goods$1.79
What you keep at $5.90
Menu price, GST included
$5.90
Less GST (one eleventh)
−$0.54
Price before GST
$5.36
Less cost of goods
−$1.79
Gross profit a cup, a 67% margin$3.57

That gross profit is what pays the barista, the rent, the power and, eventually, you.

To hit a 70% margin you would need $1.79 divided by 0.30, which is $5.97 before GST, or $6.57 with GST. Rounded up to the next 10 cents: $6.60. The same coffee drunk in costs $1.53 without the cup and lid, a 71% margin at the same price. Switch the size in the tool to see the others.

The price rise card shows the other side. At 200 regulars a day, 6 days a week, 50c more is 45c after GST, or about $91 a day and $28,364 a year. You would have to lose about 11% of those cups, 22 or 23 a day, before the rise left you behind.

Milk, waste and the price of beans

The small lines turn into real money over a year. With the defaults, at 200 regulars a day, 6 days a week:

Where the small things add up
Milk waste: 10% of 270 ml at $2.20 a litre
6.6c a cup
The same over a year
$4,118
Oat milk at $4 a litre, extra in a regular
54c
A 50c surcharge, after GST
45c, 8.5c short
Beans $1 a kilo dearer
2.1c a cup, $1,314 a year
Each upsize from a regular to a large earns38c more

The large makes a slightly lower margin than the regular (65.8% against 66.6%) but more money per cup, so an upsize is good for you. Check yours by switching the size in the tool.

Where the default numbers come from

  • Beans, $40 a kilo. One wholesale roaster put most cafés at $32 to $38 a kilo in January 2025, from $22 for basic coffee with no support to $42 or more for high-grade coffee with equipment on loan. Green bean prices hit records in early 2025 and roasters passed on rises through that year, so $40 is a fair middle for 2026. Ask your roaster for yours.
  • Milk, $2.20 a litre. Supermarket home-brand milk went to $3.55 for 2 litres at Coles in April 2026, about $1.78 a litre. Branded barista milks through a distributor usually cost more. $2.20 sits between the two.
  • Cups, 15c, 20c and 24c, and a 6c lid, before GST. Packaging suppliers list 8 oz double-wall cups at around $73 to $81 per carton of 500 before GST in 2026, about 15c each. Bigger cups cost more. Check your own invoice: brand, printing and order size all move it.
  • Oat milk, $4 a litre, with a 50c surcharge. One distributor lists a 12 litre carton of barista oat milk at $47.70, just under $4 a litre. Surcharges in Australian cafés commonly run from 50c to $1.
  • Menu prices, $5.20, $5.90 and $6.60. Point-of-sale data from Square put the average Sydney flat white at $5.04 in 2025, up from $4.61 in 2023, and CommBank reported prices around $6.50 in Sydney and Perth by early 2026. Put in your own board prices.
  • The 75 to 80% guide. Australian coffee supplier Zest Coffee suggests keeping coffee cost of goods to 20 to 25% of coffee sales. The tool starts at a 70% target; set your own under More options.

Want to cost food the same way? The recipe costing calculator does it ingredient by ingredient. For the bigger picture on margins and price rises, read how to price your café menu.

Frequently asked questions

Seven Miles Coffee Roasters put the beans, milk, cup and lid of a 12 oz takeaway flat white at around $1.55 in 2024. With this calculator's 2026 defaults (beans at $40 a kilo, a 20 g dose, 270 ml of milk at $2.20 a litre, a 20c cup and 6c lid, plus allowances for waste) it comes to $1.79. That is the cost of goods only: wages, rent, power and the machine come on top, and they are most of the price.
Australian coffee supplier Zest Coffee suggests keeping coffee cost of goods (beans, milk, cups, lids, sugar) to 20 to 25% of coffee sales, which is a 75 to 80% gross margin. Takeaway cups make that hard at today's prices: a $1.79 cup sold for $5.90 is a 67% margin. Use the target that fits your café, and look at the whole business too. The ATO's benchmarks put coffee shops' total cost of sales, food and drink together, at roughly 33 to 42% of turnover.
Because it isn't yours. Coffee sold in a café, dine-in or hot takeaway, is taxable, so one eleventh of the menu price is GST that you pass to the ATO. A $5.90 coffee earns you $5.36. Working out the margin on $5.90 would overstate it by about three percentage points on every cup.
Work out what the swap really costs first. At $4 a litre for barista oat milk against $2.20 for dairy, the 270 ml in a regular adds about 54c once waste is included. A 50c surcharge is only 45c after GST, so it falls short. Some cafés charge 50c to $1, some build the cost into every price, and some charge nothing and accept the hit. Any of those is fine as long as you chose it on purpose.
Some, possibly, but fewer than it takes to come out behind. At 200 regular coffees a day making $3.57 each, 50c more (45c after GST) adds about $91 a day. You would have to lose about 11% of those cups, 22 or 23 a day, before the rise left you worse off. Roasters including Seven Miles and Pablo & Rusty's advise small, regular rises rather than one big jump.

General information for Australian cafés, not tax or financial advice. GST treatment depends on what you sell and how, and whether you are registered. Check the ATO’s guidance or ask your accountant or BAS agent. The defaults are examples: your own invoices are the only numbers that count.

Sources for the default figures

14 sources, 3 official

  1. 1ATO: Small business benchmarks, coffee shops (2023–24)ato.gov.au · official source
  2. 2ATO: GST-free food (coffee preparations and unflavoured milk)ato.gov.au · official source
  3. 3ATO: Taxable food (food and drink consumed on the premises, hot takeaway)ato.gov.au · official source
  4. 4Seven Miles Coffee Roasters: How much does wholesale coffee cost? (January 2025)sevenmiles.com.au
  5. 5Zest Coffee: 6 key benchmarks every café owner in Australia should know (February 2026)zestcoffee.com.au
  6. 6Seven Miles Coffee Roasters: Coffee pricing strategysevenmiles.com.au
  7. 7BeanScene: Is now the time to change your coffee prices? (Abdullah Ramay, Pablo & Rusty's)beanscenemag.com.au
  8. 8Leaf Bean Machine: Rising coffee prices and you (February 2025)leafbeanmachine.com.au
Show all 14 sources
  1. 9CityNews / AAP: No let-up in coffee prices as bean supplies stabilise (2026)citynews.com.au
  2. 10CommBank: Why your morning coffee is still getting more expensive (January 2026)commbank.com.au
  3. 11The Nightly: Coles to increase price of home-brand milk (April 2026)thenightly.com.au
  4. 12Kelly's Distributors: barista oat milk, 12 x 1 L cartonkellysdistributors.com.au
  5. 13Tem Imports: 8 oz double-wall paper cups, carton of 500temimports.com.au
  6. 14ANZ Bluenotes: The economics of a cup of coffee (2023)anz.com.au

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