Unit pricing is helpful, but it's only useful if the comparison is apples to apples, and as long as you don't really want oranges …
Even though our $80 Keurig machine isn't ending up to be much of a bargain, we do still buy K-cups for the thing. They're convenient and decent in a pinch, and cost less than buying coffee out.
Costco regularly has good deals on K-cups. They end up being about half the price of what we'd pay in a grocery store.
Costco sells several brands. We looked at the unit pricing, and almost bought one kind based on the favorable unit pricing. But the unit prices didn't quite tell us what we needed to know.
Unit pricing usually helps
Just in case you're not familiar with unit pricing, here's a brief explanation. Consider two sizes of cans of tomato paste: an 8-ounce can, and a gallon can. The 8-ounce can is priced at $0.47, and the gallon can (128 ounces) is priced at $7.79.
Which is the better deal? We can guess that the bigger size is the better deal. It usually is.
But is it? The unit price (price per ounce) of the 8-ounce can is $0.47 / 8 oz, or 5.9 cents per ounce. The unit price of the gallon can is $7.79 / 128 oz, or 6.1 cents per ounce! So, the smaller can is actually the better deal, and the unit price told us so.
Many grocery stores post the unit price alongside the price of the item. Sometimes it's required. In general, most of the time, it's quite useful.
Check that unit pricing is actually useful
But not always! Here are a few situations that lead to confusion:
- Incorrect unit prices. Someone fat-fingered the numbers on the calculator and missed. The math isn't right, and the wrong item appears cheaper per ounce.
- Inconsistent units. Apples need to be compared to apples. If you do unit pricing on one brand of chocolates by the ounce, and another by the “each” or by the chocolate, the unit price comparison is meaningless.
- Sale pricing isn't reflected in the unit pricing. This doesn't happen too often, but a change in the price tag happens without a change in the unit pricing. The unit pricing on the sale item ends up being higher than it should be.
My wife and I discovered another more subtle unit pricing misdirection when looking at the Costco deals on K-Cups. It's not really purposeful misdirection, devious, or anything like that — just something to be aware of.
- Unit prices are correct and consistent, but the unit doesn't reflect the use of the item. The issue here was that Costco did unit pricing for K-Cups based on net weight. It is indeed a unit comparison, but that's not how people use the products. They use a cup at a time, regardless of the net weight of the coffee inside the cup.
I wrote down information on three of the boxes to illustrate how this can be confusing. The K-Cups were unit-priced by the pound on the price signs in the store. I also calculated the price per cup, which would be more typical of how the cups are used. The best deal was different in each case:
| Brand | Number of cups | Net weight (pounds) | Price | Unit price per cup | Unit price per pound |
| A | 100 | 2.0 | $37.99 | $0.380 | $18.995 |
| B | 80 | 1.6 | $37.99 | $0.475 | $23.744 |
| C | 80 | 2.0 | $35.29 | $0.441 | $17.645 |
Brand A was the best deal priced per cup, but Brand C was the best deal priced per pound.
What we learned about this unusual unit pricing
Despite how confusing this is, it did bring to light a couple of interesting facts about the K-Cups in general — maybe unintentionally!
- Not all K-Cups are created equal. If all K-Cups used the same amount of coffee in each cup, it wouldn't matter at all whether the cups were unit-priced by the cup, or by the pound. But some K-Cups have more coffee in them. Brand C had 25% more ground coffee per cup than Brands A and B.
- Not surprisingly, coffee by the K-Cup is expensive. The coffee was between $17 and nearly $24 per pound. That's very, very expensive. Whole bean coffee is about half that per pound. And ground coffee in a can is half again as much per pound. Unit-pricing the K-Cups per pound really exposed how expensive the coffee is! Since the K-Cups were located far from the other coffee in Costco, some people might not notice the huge difference. But a lot will.
So, be careful with unit pricing. It's usually helpful, but if something doesn't sound right, check it out. If there is a mistake, see what the mistake tells you.
Maybe I’m just confused, but why would you use K-cups at home? I bought a $50 Keurig about a year ago, and ran into this same problem. I even thought the machine had gone bad, as some of the k-cups I had acquired gave out tea-like coffee. (not enough coffee inside).
However, you can just buy a $10 k-cup filler thingie. Amazon’s got a ton of them; I think we bought ours at Target. I fill it to the brim, and every cup of coffee is black. A $4 lb of coffee from Aldi gets me dozens of cups of coffee – we don’t drink it very often, so it’s really replaced only every other month or so.
Then you get the convenience of the Keurig, while paying cheap coffee prices. Win-Win!
We have the reusable cups as well. We also have a regular coffee pot. We also have a French press, and a fair bit of instant coffee. Having the pre-made K-Cups does help when there’s a rush. I’m still not to the point where I can organize everything, but I’m getting there. The K-Cups are a stopgap. If I could plan my day without the rush, I’d be using a lot fewer K-Cups. But your point is very well taken. There are much cheaper options, even with Keurig. I still haven’t quite gotten the knack of filling the reusable K-Cups yet. Pretty often the coffee ends up coming out the top because the grind is too fine, or because I fill the cup up too much.
It can be misleading to think that the larger amount is the cheaper way to go. If you truly compare the costs, as you suggested, you may find that buying multiple numbers of the smaller product is cheaper. It may take a little time to compare costs and make sure that the units are the same, as you mentioned what’s listed often isn’t the same, but in the end if you want to save money, it’s possible.
I have been finding out more often than not that the larger size is not the best deal. Especially if there’s any chance that you won’t use the entire container before it spoils.