Coffee Cost Per Cup: How Much Should Your Cebu Café Pay?

A Cebu café should expect to pay roughly ₱14.20 to ₱19.20 in beans per double shot, ex-VAT. At Agross wholesale rates one kilo makes about 50 double shots, so 100% Robusta at ₱710/kg (ex-VAT) works out to ₱14.20 a cup and 100% Arabica at ₱960/kg to ₱19.20. Ordering 50kg or more trims both. Prices are ex-VAT; 12% VAT is added at checkout. Figures below are current as of publish — for the live numbers, always check the wholesale pricing page.

Most café owners shop for coffee by the price per kilo. But that's the wrong number. The figure that actually decides your margin is cost per cup — and a cheaper kilo can quietly cost you more per cup once you factor in dose, waste and freshness. Here's how to work it out.

The cost-per-cup formula

It's simple:

Cost per cup = price per kilo (ex-VAT) ÷ (1000 ÷ grams per shot)

A standard double shot uses about 18–20g of beans, so 1kg makes roughly 50 cups. At Agross's wholesale Robusta price of ₱710/kg (ex-VAT), that's about ₱14.20 of beans per cup. On a latte you sell for ₱130–150, your bean cost is around 9–11% — healthy, if the beans are fresh and consistent.

What quietly inflates your cost per cup

• Stale beans — baristas over-dose to chase flavour that's already gone, burning 2–3g extra per shot.
• Inconsistent roast — re-pulled shots and wasted milk add up fast.
• Long shipping — beans roasted in Manila lose 2–5 days of freshness in transit, so you pay for quality you never serve.
• Wrong bean for the drink — paying Arabica prices for a menu that's 90% milk drinks.

How to lower it (without cheapening your cup)

1. Match the bean to your menu. Mostly milk drinks? A strong Robusta or a balanced blend cuts cost per cup while keeping crema and body. Here's how to choose between Arabica, Robusta and blends.

2. Buy fresh and local. Same-day Cebu delivery means beans hit your bar days fresher — better cups, less over-dosing.

3. Hit the bulk tier. Ordering 50kg+ unlocks wholesale pricing that drops your cost per cup further.

Cost per cup at every price tier

Below is the current Agross wholesale price list, ex-VAT. Tier 1 (standard) covers 1 to 49kg, tier 2 (bulk) applies from 50kg up.

Per kilo, ex-VAT (12% VAT added at checkout). Packed fresh in Talisay City, Cebu. See the wholesale pricing page → for the current live rates.

Divide each of those by 50 and you have your bean cost per double shot at a 20g dose:

• 100% Robusta: about ₱14.20 a cup, or ₱13.60 from 50kg
• Blend 2 (20% Arabica): about ₱15.20 a cup, or ₱14.60 from 50kg
• Blend 5 (50/50): about ₱16.70 a cup, or ₱16.10 from 50kg
• Blend 7 (70% Arabica): about ₱17.70 a cup, or ₱17.10 from 50kg
• Blend 8 (80% Arabica): about ₱18.20 a cup, or ₱17.60 from 50kg
• 100% Arabica: about ₱19.20 a cup, or ₱18.60 from 50kg

All figures ex-VAT; add 12% VAT at checkout. If your baristas dose 18g rather than 20g you get closer to 55 shots per kilo, which takes roughly 10 per cent off every figure above. A two-gram change in dose moves your bean cost more than the gap between two suppliers usually does, so weigh a week of shots before you blame a price list.

A worked example: consolidating to the bulk tier

Say your bar pulls 300 espresso-based drinks a week at a 20g dose. That is 6kg a week and about 24kg a month — comfortably inside the standard 1–49kg tier, so a single café at this volume won't reach the 50kg bulk rate on a monthly order alone.

The bulk tier suits larger accounts: a multi-branch café group, a hotel with a busy breakfast urn plus a lobby café, or a café consolidating two months of stock into one 50kg+ order (only sensible if storage is excellent, since beans that sit too long lose freshness). On 100% Robusta, the standard rate is ₱710/kg and the bulk rate is ₱680/kg — a ₱30/kg saving once you clear 50kg, or roughly ₱1,500 on a 50kg order.

Bean choice moves the number further than the tier does. 100% Arabica at ₱960/kg (standard) is ₱250/kg more than 100% Robusta at ₱710/kg. That is not an argument against Arabica, but an argument for knowing which drinks carry the cost: on a milk-heavy menu most of the difference is masked, while on a short black it is the whole cup.

Delivery is charged separately and confirmed as part of your quote — orders placed before 11 AM are delivered the same day inside Metro Cebu. Outside Cebu, nationwide shipping runs 3 to 7 business days, so build that into your reorder point. Check which areas are covered before you set stock levels.

What else belongs in your cost per cup

Beans are the line most owners track, and the only one this page can price for you. For a true figure, add your own invoice costs for the rest of the cup:

• Milk, oat or soy, usually the largest ingredient by volume in a 12oz latte
• Takeaway cups, lids, sleeves, stirrers and carrier trays
• Syrups, sugar, chocolate powder and toppings
• Filtered water and filter cartridge replacements
• Wastage: dial-in shots each morning, drinks remade, milk binned at close

Two habits keep this honest. Track wastage as its own line instead of burying it inside bean cost, otherwise a grinder that needs recalibrating looks like an expensive supplier. And re-run the calculation whenever your dose, milk price or bean price changes, not once a year. Storage matters too, because beans that go flat in an open bin get over-dosed to compensate. These storage habits protect the number you just worked out.

How the number changes by business type

Cafés

Espresso volume is steady, so dose discipline is the main lever. A café that fixes its dose usually saves more than a café that switches supplier.

Hotels

Demand concentrates in the breakfast window, and buffet urns use far more grams per serve than an espresso bar. Work out two figures, one for the machine and one for the urn. The bean grade can sensibly differ between them.

Restaurants

Coffee is often one item at the end of a meal, so consumption per cover is low and stock turns slowly. Order smaller and more often rather than holding a quantity that will go stale. The 1kg minimum makes that practical, though you may sit in the standard tier as a result.

Offices and co-working spaces

There is no menu price to protect, so the metric is cost per head per month rather than margin. A mid blend usually keeps complaints down without an Arabica invoice.

What to ask before you accept a price per kilo

• Is the price ex-VAT or VAT inclusive, and where do the volume tiers break?
• What is the minimum order, and is there a lock-in? With Agross the minimum paid order is 1kg and there is no contract.
• How is delivery charged? With Agross it's confirmed as part of your quote rather than a flat published rate.
• How fast is an emergency top-up? Same-day inside Metro Cebu before 11 AM is a different operating reality from a three-day wait.
• Are whole bean and ground the same price, and will they grind to your machine? With Agross both options cost the same.
• Can you sample before committing? Samples are free for businesses buying or planning at least 10 kg a month, with no lock-in contract, so there is no reason to guess. Request a sample here.

Run those questions past any supplier and the real cost of a kilo becomes obvious. See how Agross wholesale supply works if you want the answers in one place.

Frequently Asked Questions

Know your number, protect your margin

Agross supplies Arabica & Robusta to Cebu cafés, hotels and restaurants — transparent published wholesale pricing, same-day delivery, no lock-in. Want us to run your cost-per-cup and recommend the right bean? Claim a free sample and quote or call 0919 090 7001.