You already know coffee is cheaper at home. That’s like knowing water is wet or that your boss thinks “circle back” is a personality trait. In the first quarter of 2025, the average American coffee habit cost about $3.50 for a plain cup of joe, $5.50 for a cold brew, and $5.75 for a latte—though if you’re unlucky enough to be trapped in an airport, Starbucks will happily shake you down for eight bucks for a cup of icy bean juice.
Airport coffee usually costs about 10–15% more than what you’d pay on the street, thanks to something cheerfully called the “street pricing” model. Translation: vendors are allowed to tack on a little extra because running a café in an airport is basically like renting a closet in Manhattan—if that closet also required security clearance, a maze of logistics, and a revenue-sharing deal with the landlord. So yes, your latte is helping cover the cost of TSA checkpoints and overpriced terminal real estate.
Airport Coffee vs. Your Kitchen: The Turbulent Breakdown
| Drink | Airport Daily | DIY Daily | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small Drip (12 oz), 1x/day | $4.50 | $0.62 | |||
| Small Drip (12 oz), 2x/day (because flight delays exist) | $9.00 | $1.24 | |||
| Latte (16 oz) | $6.50 | $1.35* | |||
| Fancy Caramel Drink (20 oz) | $7.50 | $1.81* |
| Most Expensive Airports in Europe for a Cup of Coffee (€) | |
| Oslo | 3.92 |
| Brussels | 3.03 |
| Munich | 2.55 |
| London | 3.14 |
| Berlin | 3.35 |
| Amsterdam | 3.38 |
| Zurich | 2.50 |
| Paris | 2.50 |
| Frankfurt | 2.90 |
| Dublin | 2.78 |
Airport coffee is the TSA of your wallet—an unnecessary checkpoint that robs you of your dignity and spare change. And before you assume it’s just the airport, or major cities like New York or L.A. that are charging luxury-rent prices, think again. Fretboard Coffee in Columbia, Missouri will sell you a $7 nitro, and First District Cafe in Covington, Kentucky asks $6 for a cold brew. That’s right: your latte now costs more than a gallon of gas in some states.
Most Expensive States For a Cappuccino
- Oklahoma - $6.42
- Hawaii - $6.25
- Massachusetts - $5.71
- Idaho - $5.68
- North Carolina - $5.58
- Tennessee - $5.55
- Pennsylvania - $5.50
- Washington - $5.48
- California - $5.46
- New Hampshire & New York - $5.43
Starbucks vs. Your Kitchen
| Drink | Starbucks Daily | Starbucks Yearly | DIY Daily | DIY Yearly | Annual Savings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tall (12 oz) drip, 1x/day | $1.85 | $462.50 | $0.62 | $155.00 | $307.50 |
| Tall (12 oz) drip, 2x/day | $3.70 | $925.00 | $1.24 | $310.00 | $615.00 |
| Grande (16 oz) Caffe Latte | $3.65 | $912.50 | $1.35* | $336.83* | $575.68 |
| Venti (20 oz) Caramel Macchiato | $4.75 | $1,187.50 | $1.81* | $451.25* | $736.25 |
*Includes cost of basic equipment, because, yes, lattes don’t make themselves.
You could be pocketing anywhere from $300 to $736 per year. That’s not “pocket change”—that’s “new iPhone” or “a vacation where you’re not forced to drink drip coffee in a motel lobby.”
The Painful Bean Math
Then there’s the bean math. A pound of unroasted coffee costs around $10, but that fluctuates like a toddler’s mood. After roasting, shrinkage, and brewing, a 16-ounce cold brew usually uses 6 ounces of concentrate. Translation: that one cup already has about $2 worth of coffee sloshing around inside it—before you add in milk, sugar, cups, and the extra ice you definitely didn’t ask for.
Espresso-based drinks? Not much better. Espresso is basically liquid gold—$4.50 a cup before markup—and that’s before factoring in condiments, dairy, waste, and the fact that oat milk now costs roughly the same as oil futures.
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Tall Drip Coffee ($1.85/day): At-home cost = $0.62. Congratulations, you just paid Starbucks $300+ for ambience and free Wi-Fi.
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Grande Latte ($3.65/day): DIY drops the cost to $1.35. That’s a $575 difference—aka, almost six months of Netflix you definitely won’t watch.
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Venti Caramel Macchiato ($4.75/day): At-home = $1.81. Savings? $736. That’s enough for a plane ticket to Italy—where they’ll actually tell you what a real macchiato is.
Meanwhile, roasters buy green beans and set base prices, often benefiting from oversupply and roasting weight loss (coffee’s version of a crash diet). But many small shops still go under because they can’t compete for attention with mega-chains. Starbucks and McDonald’s can charge less because they buy in bulk the way Costco buys paper towels, while independents survive by offering you something money can’t buy at McDonald’s: ambiance.
Our point of this article, isn't to tell you to buy your favorite Starbucks drink or on the go airport brew. It's none of our business what you do. The point of this article is to just break down the math at a high-level, and let the math make the case for a world of balance. A lot of DIY mixed with a little Starbucks and a sprinkle of airport priced brews still saves money and adapts to the demands of on-the-go life. But don't listen to us, we're DIY bias after all.
