The Definitive Guide To Subscription Services Of Major Coffee Chains (Part 1)
Coffee is in a constant battle against whiskey for the role of favorite personality-changing elixir in my life, but sometimes I can’t stand to wait in line at my local coffee shops. That being said, I don’t always have the time or patience to grind and brew/french press my way to happiness in the morning, but it always feels better making my coffee myself.
With Starbucks throwing its hat in the coffee subscription ring, it’s about time someone officiated the battle. This is the first of a three-part series tackling the dense subscription market and just how valuable it is to you, my dear readers.
From veterans and behemoths to the scrappy rookies, here’s the quick and dirty lowdown on some of the nation’s favorite roasters:
*Starbucks and Caribou Coffee only offer frequency flexibility through their Build Your Own Subscriptions.
Dunn Brothers Coffee has some serious catching up to do in terms of their offerings, while Peet’s Coffee & Tea has been crushing the game.
The following chart is based on mid-range approximations for 12 ounces of coffee using 10 major coffee chains’ subscription service prices:
Jump to your favorite chain’s service in detail by using one of the following links: Blue Bottle Coffee, Caribou Coffee, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Dunkin’ Donuts, Dunn Brothers Coffee, Intelligentsia Coffee, Keurig Green Mountain, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Starbucks Coffee and Stumptown Coffee Roasters.
Unless otherwise noted, all of the following companies charge you only when your coffee ships; there are additional shipping costs.
Blue Bottle Coffee
Founded in 2002, Blue Bottle Coffee has been experiencing substantial growth in the past five years. Falling into the realm of artisanal roasters, the company has a big business attitude with a few storefronts sprinkled in major cities.
They’ve been playing their cards pretty close to their chest lately, so either further success or immense failure is on the horizon.
Price Range
$11 to $46 per order
Half a bag (6oz): $11-13
One bag (12oz): $17-21
Two bags (24oz): $28-34
Three bags (36oz): $38-46
Product Loyalty: $12-42
Products Offered
Espresso: A selection of espressos, blends and origin coffees already available in any Blue Bottle coffeehouse.
Blend: A rotating selection of blends.
Origin: New single origin offering from Latin America, East Africa or the Pacific Islands.
Product Loyalty: A subscription to your favorite type of Blue Bottle Coffee.
Cycles Offered
By the week (1-4 increments)
How to Cancel
You can easily pause/skip or cancel using the Blue Bottle website.
Caribou Coffee
Caribou Coffee is a name known better in America’s heartland and has been fueling citizens for over 20 years.
Every new subscription account with Caribou receives a free (totally valuable, kind of useful, probably worthless) gift. All subscription types receive a 15 percent shipping discount and orders above $59 are allotted free shipping.
Price Range
$7.40-$31.98 per order
1/2lb $7.40-8.39
1lb $12.99-15.99
Two 1lb bags $21.98-31.98
Products Offered
Roastmaster’s Choice: You can choose from several different clubs including the self-explanatory Lighter Roast, Darker Roast and Decaf Lover’s, in addition to the Explorer’s Club which pulls roasts from all over the world. There’s also a club dedicated to replenishing your K-Cup inventory.
Design Your Own: You can mix and match Caribou’s selection of coffee and K-Cups.
Cycles Offered
Roastmaster’s Choice: Monthly in open-ended subscriptions, three-, six- or 12-month commitments
Design Your Own: Weekly, every other week and monthly
How to Cancel
Cancel the Design Your Own subscription at anytime online. Since you’re only charged when the Roastmaster’s Choice ships, you should be able to cancel before they send your next batch.
The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, the arch-nemesis of our Starbucks overlords, has been holding its own in recent decades and has a diverse subscription service catalog to show for it.
Price Range
$7-39.95
Coffee (12oz): $8.95-39.95
Tea (20 tea bags): $8.75-20.75
K-Cups (16-count): $11.95
Powder (22oz): $11.95
CBTL Capsules (10-count): $7-11
Products Offered
Coffee: The coffee selection spans decaf and all the major staples, in terms of flavor and geographic cultivation.
Tea: A wide variety of teas is available in both bagged form and loose leaf.
K-Cups and CBTL Capsules: Either way your brand loyalty lies, Coffee Bean gives you two options to pop into your single serve coffee machine in the morning.
Powder: For those who need more pizzazz in their coffee, Coffee Bean’s French Deluxe Vanilla and Special Dutch Chocolate Powder are also available for purchase.
See Coffee Bean’s full selection here.
Cycles Offered
By the month (1-3 increments)
How to Cancel
Account suspension must occur six days before your estimated shipping date, which is emailed to you in advance, or else the suspension will only affect your next shipment.
Dunkin’ Donuts
One of the most well known names in the US coffee scene, Dunkin’ Donuts Regular Refills subscription service has existed for “more than 10 years,” according to Sherrill Kaplan, director of Digital & Loyalty Marketing.
Kaplan divulged that the brand America evidently runs on will be expanding its K-Cup offerings later this year, but here’s where the service currently stands:
Price Range
$5.99-$69.99 per order
Tea (20 bags): $5.99
Coffee (1lb): $8.99
2oz packs (48-count): $69.99
Products Offered
Tea: No-frills teas including black, green and decaf
Coffee: You can buy Decaf, French Vanilla, Hazelnut, Dark Roast and Original Blend in their ground forms. The Original Blend also has a whole bean variety and a pack of 48 bricks of ground coffee.
Cycles Offered
By the week (4, 6, 8, 10 increments)
How to Cancel
Cancel anytime online using your account.
Dunn Brothers’ Coffee
Almost 30 years ago, in the heartland of America, the Dunn brothers opened their first coffeehouse. Ever since they’ve been serving our country pride, a variety of roasts, and a questionable online order form.
Price Range
$31.98-31.99 (2lbs)
Products Offered
Light Selection, Medium Selection and Dark Selection: Pretty self-explanatory choices where you get 2lbs of your chosen roast each month.
Three Month Subscription: Saving a penny a month, you can choose from any of the above selections or a roaster’s selection. On their website, choosing this option doesn’t actually allow you to make that selection or specify the type of grinds you would like. You just get sent to a checkout page with all three months’ worth of shipping tacked onto your first month.
Cycles Offered
By the month with an option for a three-month commitment.
How to Cancel
You can use your account to cancel your monthly subscriptions, but the three-month commitment self-terminates.
Intelligentsia Coffee
Though I’ve never had a terrific customer service experience at any Intelligentsia storefront, I found their website and subscription service to be surprisingly consumer friendly, albeit minimalist. Everything was where it needed to be and they have a pretty relaxed return policy (they’ll refund/exchange ANYTHING you weren’t satisfied with up to 30 days after purchase) for such a relatively small company.
Price Range
$14-106
12oz $14-18
5lbs $80-106
Products Offered
Analog Espresso, Black Cat Project
Classic Espresso, Black Cat Project
El Diablo Dark Roast
El Gallo Organic Breakfast Blend
Frequency Blend
House Blend
In-Season/Direct Trade Select Offering
Decaf Librarian’s Blend
Cycles Offered
By the week (1-4 increments)
How to Cancel
Cancel anytime online using your subscription account.
Keurig Green Mountain
The union of Keurig and Green Mountain brought together countless brand names in coffee, including Tully’s Coffee. Unfortunately, this union reigns supreme for K-Cup lovers; the company’s whole bean coffee offering pales in comparison to the wide array of K-cups available for auto-delivery.
Side note of immense bias: Tully’s Coffee = #RideOrDie
Price Range
$9.44-$56.99 (member pricing per order)
K-Cup Coffee (24- to 96-pack) $11.24-56.69
Coffee (10 to 12oz) $9.44-24.99
K-Cup Tea (16- to 24-pack)$10.34-19.34
Products Offered
K-Cup: All of them. Every K-Cup that exists whether it’s coffee, tea or hot cocoa.
Coffee: Green Mountain, Newman’s Own and Tully’s Coffee are all available for under $10, but Green Mountain’s Reserve Kona Coffee serves as a $25 outlier, even with member pricing.
Cycles Offered
By the week (2-12 increments)
How to Cancel
Edit or cancel at any point online; canceling back-ordered products requires a call to their customer center.
Peet’s Coffee & Tea
Peet’s Coffee & Tea set the standard for coffee subscriptions, offering them as early as the mid-1970s and taking them online in 2004. This is the only service that also allows you to add confectionery food items to your order in addition to Peet’s significant selection of coffee, teas, K-cups and coffee accessories.
They also offer the cheapest shipping I came across with a flat rate of $2, orders totaling more than $59 shipping for free, and upgraded shipping receiving a 50 percent discount.
Price Range
$2.25-77.80 per order
Coffee: $12.95-24.95 per lb., Kona and JR Reserve Blend $24.95 per 1/2lb.
K-Cups (16- to 96-count): $13.99-67.99
Tea (loose and bagged): $5.45-77.80
Treats and Spices: $2.25-20
Products Offered
Coffee: Ranges from standard espressos and blends to curated roast selections.
K-Cups: They carry eight different coffee styles with a range of cup counts, but you have to specifically go to the K-Cup section to add a set to your subscription.
Tea: Dozens of standard teas in their bagged and loose forms, along with designer teas sold by the pound.
Treats and Spices: This section, also not found in the site’s subscription section, is generally stocked with candies, chocolates and cookies, but you can also purchase vanilla beans or extract.
Cycles Offered
By the week (1-4, 6, and 8 increments) or you can choose a custom number of days.
How to Cancel
You can pause or cancel your subscription at any time using your online account.
Starbucks Coffee
Starbucks announced their coffee subscription service in February, making it the latest to join the game, despite being the most internationally popular coffee chain.
The subscription section of their website feels more like they were tardy to the party than fashionably late.
Price Range
$8.95-$288 per order
Whole Bean (8.8-48oz): $8.95-44.95
Reserve: $24-288
Verismo Cups & K-Cups (32- to 160-count): $23.95-109.95
Products Offered
Starbucks Reserve Roastery: You receive a small lot batch of specially selected coffee once a month.
Build Your Own: This much more flexible plan lets you add almost anything (excluding that month’s reserve selections) to your subscription at whichever frequency suits your lifestyle.
Cycles Offered
Starbucks Reserve Roastery: By the week (1-4 and 8 increments)
Build Your Own: Monthly in one-, three-, six- and 12-month commitments
How to Cancel
You can cancel the Build Your Own and ongoing Reserve option at any time, but you pay for the monthly commitments upfront.
Stumptown Coffee Roasters
Last, but certainly not least, we have the legends at Stumptown. Arguably one of the most prolific rising roasters in recent years, Stumptown began offering subscriptions in 2011.
Though they plan to revamp the service in the coming months, here’s how their current subscriptions work:
Price Range
$14-20 per order
12oz Favorite Coffee $14-15.75
12oz Roaster’s Pick $20
Products Offered
Favorite Coffee: If you love their Hair Bender Roast above all else, you can receive as much as you want (up to 10,000 12-ounce bags, according to their website) on whichever cycle matches your coffee drinking schedule. This plan is offered for all of their staple roasts.
Roaster’s Pick: For a slight cost bump, you can receive a roast specially chosen each month. You have free rein with quantity and frequency, but, regardless of the cycle you choose, the coffee will not change until the month does.
Cycles Offered
Favorite Coffee: By the week (1-4) or weekly for an entire year
Roaster’s Pick: By the week (1-4) at three- or six-month commitments
How to Cancel
You can cancel or pause your subscription anytime using your online Stumptown account, regardless of subscription type.
Corporate coffee not your thing? Stay tuned for a (tl;dr) local edition featuring the most notable roasters from a major US coffee city near you.
