A question we often see on the net, and we get asked on our site, is where is the best place to buy Keurig coffee pods (or more correctly, K-Cup portions – as they like to refer to them as). We all want to save a few dollars, and like we wrote the other day when looking at the brewers themselves, saving a few dollars each time on the K-Cups adds up over a year.
From our experience and research we have set out below the top three sources of buying K-Cups on a regular basis. It’s always a combination of price, service and reliability that we consider in where we buy most things; K-Cups being no different.
As part of the review today we’ll look at a price comparison across the three sites for the purchase of a box of 24 K-Cups French Roast Coffee made by Barista Prima Coffeehouse. We picked this brand and flavor at random. We haven’t tried it ourselves and have no preference for it one way or the other. But it provides a useful comparison basis for us today as we look at the best places to shop for regular K-Cup purchases.
The results surprised us ….
ebay.com (3rd Place)
So how did ebay do? They came a very close third for this box of 24 K-Cups, with a best price (including free delivery) of $17.99. This makes each K-Cup come in at $0.75. A big plus was the free shipping with no minimum spend order. The seller also had good feedback and so seemed to provide a good service.
You do need to watch on ebay, although this is the same when buying any K-Cup boxes, is the pod count. It would be easy on ebay to be going for a cheap box of the exact same coffee, but these may have counts of only 18 K-Cups or less. So just watch for this as they all can look quite similar.
amazon.com (2nd Place)
This is our favorite and the service we use most consistently. We have found over the years their service to be very good. Whenever we have had an issue with a transaction (which is rare) they have always fixed the problem and prices are generally close to or are the cheapest available online.
But setting all of that aside, how did amazon do with the price on our French Roast purchase? Well they came in at $17.32, (second place) making each K-Cup cost $0.72 each. They do say free shipping, but be mindful this is only on orders above $35. So as long as you purchased something else then you would ok on the shipping costs.
If the free shipping is excluded, ie this was the only thing you were going to buy in that purchase, then amazon would be third in this study.
keurig.com (Ist Place)
To our surprise Keurig came in 1st place with a cost per K-Cup of just $0.67 – or a total price on the box of 24 French Roast of $16.19 for members. Now, do be careful here, as if we took the non-members price they would be an equal second with ebay as this price came in at $17.99.
And do watch on the shipping side too. We have assumed free shipping with this comparison, but like amazon there is a minimum spend. In this case the minimum on a single order has to be $45.
We used the members price as if you are buying K-Cups it means you most likely already own the brewer. And so have registered this with Keurig and joined their Keurig Club. We set out in our article the benefits of joining this, and this example illustrates case in point.
It’s not a big saving, but over a few years this would add up. Lets say you purchased two boxes of this type of product once a month for two years; you would spend $777.12. While if you purchased the same product through ebay you would spend $863.52. This makes a saving of $86.40 (or 10{6c1d21b28c072de11df6e8c2943245f6562f7e83976247c978ee0544fdd5791f}); in other words, over two years you in effect get FIVE boxes for free!
Conclusion – Maybe we’ll be changing …
From our short study we actually might look at moving our spending to Keurig using the Keurig Club benefits. We were a little surprised ourselves to see that even a small difference of $0.03 per K-Cup adds up to over two and a half boxes (or a months supply) each year. And if you purchase more than two boxes a month this saving would be even greater.
So do your homework, shop around a little … you will be surprised what you can save. We were!