Is a 1kg bag of coffee cheaper than four 250g bags?

Yes, for 94% of the roasters on Bean Clarity who sell both sizes. The typical saving is 20% per kilo. The figure comes from comparing the two sizes within the same coffee at the same roaster, so it is a like for like comparison rather than cheap coffee being set against dear coffee.

Why do roasters charge less per kilo for a bigger bag?

The bag, the label, the filling and the postage cost roughly the same whatever goes inside, so they are spread over four times as much coffee. None of that is a judgement about the coffee itself.

Is there a reason not to buy the kilo?

Freshness. A kilo is about forty cafetiere servings, and roasters publish a roast date precisely because coffee is better near it. If you drink a bag a month, four separate 250g bags bought over four months will each be fresher than the last quarter of a kilo.

Why a bigger bag of coffee costs less per kilo

Nearly always, and by more than most people expect. Across the roasters on this site who sell the same coffee in both sizes, the bigger bag works out 20% cheaper per kilo, and it is the cheaper buy for 94% of them.

Where that figure comes from

It is not an average of cheap coffee against dear coffee. It compares the two sizes within the same coffee at the same roaster, then takes the middle of those gaps across the catalogue. Today that is drawn from 8,610 coffees with a price we could read. Every figure on this site carries the date it was checked, and this one was read from the catalogue of 6 November 2026.

What it does not cover: roasters who sell only one size, which is most of them, and any coffee whose pack size the roaster did not state in a form we could read. Those are left out rather than guessed at, which is why the figure moves a little between crawls.

Why it happens

The bag, the label, the valve, the filling and the postage cost about the same whatever goes inside them. Put four times as much coffee in, and those costs are spread four ways. That is the whole of it. It says nothing about the coffee, and this site does not rank coffee by quality in any case.

When the kilo is the wrong buy

Freshness is the real trade. A kilo is roughly forty cafetiere servings. Roasters print a roast date because coffee is better near it, and the last quarter of a kilo is by definition the oldest coffee you will drink that month. If you get through a 250g bag in four weeks, four bags bought one at a time will each be fresher than the tail of a kilo.

The other trade is simply that you have to like it first. A kilo of a coffee you turn out not to enjoy is not a saving.

Seeing it for yourself

Every coffee page here prints the price per kilo of each size the roaster sells, beside each other, so the gap is visible without any arithmetic. The cheapest per kilo ordering is worked out from whichever bag is cheapest per kilo, and the coffee page says underneath which bag that was, because the cheapest per kilo is often a sack rather than the bag you would buy.

There is more on how the prices are read, and what we do when a roaster does not state one, in what coffee costs per kilo and on how we do this.

No roaster can pay to change a figure or the order of a list; any paid placement is labelled Sponsored.