Independent buying guides
For UK households deciding between a pod machine, a filter brewer and an espresso set-up. Each guide answers one buying question, uses sourced figures with check dates, and shows the cost-per-cup formula including beans, milk and descaler.
| Guides published | 3 | Each one answers a single buying question. |
|---|---|---|
| Calculators | 3 | Formula, units and assumptions shown on the page. |
| Sources cited | 10 | Each with the date the link was checked. |
| Photographs | 11 | Free-licence images, photographer credited. |
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
Running costs
Machine, beans, electricity at the current Ofgem cap and the filters you cannot skip. The arithmetic behind a home double, worked through in pounds.
Photo: Peter krimbacher · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
How to choose
Four decisions settle which coffee machine still gets used in year three: the grinder split, the format, the counter it has to fit, and your water.
Photo: Herr Andrax · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Maintenance
Your hardness band, not the calendar, sets the descaling interval. Here is the UK classification, an example schedule costed per year, and what filters do.
Photo: massage-techniques · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Each calculator shows its formula, units and assumptions. Nothing is estimated for you in secret.
Ingredient cost, consumable cost and machine cost in one figure per serving.
cost per serving = ingredient per serving + consumable per serving + (machine price - resale) / (servings per day x 365 x years)
Annual electricity cost from rated power, hours of use and your own tariff.
annual cost = power (W) / 1000 x hours per day x days per year x price per kWh, plus standby power (W) / 1000 x standby hours x days x price per kWh
What a cross-border order really costs once shipping, duty and tax are added.
landed cost = (item price + shipping) + duty + tax, where duty = item price x duty rate, and tax = (item price + shipping + duty) x tax rate
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
1
Photo: freestock.ca · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The method that changes the result.
0
Photo: Jon Sullivan · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Energy, consumables and the cost of a year of use.
1
Photo: Shixart1985 · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Intervals, parts and what they cost.
1
Photo: Sage Ross · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Filters, pods, pads and their real intervals.
0
Photo: Alayna the Extravagant · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Fixing it before you replace it.
0
Photo: Herr Andrax · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Every figure in a guide is taken from a named source, with the date it was checked. Where a number is an assumption or an example, it says so in the same sentence.
We do not run paid product tests, we do not publish reader reviews, and we do not claim to have handled every product mentioned. Where a claim needs a lab or a long-term test we do not have, the guide says that plainly.
Photographs are free-licence images from Wikimedia Commons or Openverse, credited to the photographer with the licence named. Charts are drawn from the figures printed in the same guide.
This site earns money from advertising and, where disclosed, from affiliate links. That does not change the order of a comparison or the conclusion of a guide.
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