How Much Coffee Should a Café Order? A Calculator Based on Daily Cup Sales

This coffee order calculator helps café owners turn daily drink sales into a bean purchasing plan. Start with cups sold and coffee dose, allow for waste, then account for delivery time and stock already available. The worksheet below can be used with an ordinary calculator. For monthly planning, use our Coffee Beans Per Month Calculator.

Quick answer: A café selling 100 coffee drinks daily at 18 g each, with 5% of total bean use lost to waste, needs approximately 1.895 kg per day or 13.263 kg over seven trading days. That is 14 one-kilogram bags before adjusting for existing stock, incoming deliveries and reserve requirements. All numbers in this guide are illustrative, not measured Philippine café averages.

1. Coffee order calculator inputs

Count coffee drinks, not all transactions. Tea, chocolate and food orders do not consume coffee beans. Use the dry coffee dose for each recipe; cup size and milk volume do not directly determine bean consumption.

For mixed recipes, add the grams required by each drink. For example, 60 drinks at 18 g plus 40 at 20 g need 1,880 g before waste. Divide by 100 drinks to get an 18.8 g weighted average. Keep separate calculations for decaf, house espresso and single-origin beans so a surplus of one does not hide a shortage of another.

2. Calculate daily bean use, including waste

Daily bean use (kg) = daily coffee drinks × average dose (g) ÷ [1,000 × (1 − waste rate)]. Enter 5% as 0.05.

In the coffee order calculator example: 100 × 18 ÷ (1,000 × 0.95) = 1.8947368 kg daily. We show three decimal places in the tables and retain full precision until rounding the final number of bags.

The waste definition matters. Here, 5% means five percent of all beans consumed are lost through calibration, purging, spills or discarded drinks. Multiplying recipe demand by 1.05 uses a different definition: a five-percent allowance added to recipe demand. Do not mix the two.

If you record calibration waste separately in grams, you can instead add it to recipe demand. Do not add the same waste again through a percentage. For batch brew, include beans used in unsold batches, and avoid counting those losses twice. Our servings-per-kilogram guide helps check recipe yield.

3. Coffee order calculator: weekly quantity table

These figures assume 18 g per drink, 5% waste and seven trading days. They show consumption only. The final column rounds consumption up to whole 1 kg bags; it is not automatically the purchase order.

If sales differ by weekday, forecast each day separately and add the results. A shop closed on Mondays should not multiply an open-day average by seven. Use the same calendar basis throughout delivery and review calculations, allowing zero consumption on closed days.

For holiday and weather planning prompts, see our seasonal planning guide for Philippine cafés. Base changes to your order quantity on your own sales history and confirmed events.

4. Set a reorder point before beans run out

A reorder point answers when to order. The Utah Division of Finance’s inventory-control policy expresses this as demand during lead time plus safety stock. This is a general inventory principle, not a Philippine coffee regulation.

Reorder point = expected consumption during delivery lead time + safety stock.

For a café open every day, the example’s three-day lead time and two-day buffer give: 1.8947368 × (3 + 2) = 9.474 kg. If there are no pending orders or separate commitments, reaching that usable stock level signals a reorder. With pending deliveries, monitor inventory position and their arrival dates to avoid duplicate ordering.

The two-day buffer is an illustrative planning choice, not a guaranteed service level. Adjust it using actual sales variability and late-delivery records. Confirm whether your supplier’s lead time includes processing, roasting, dispatch and transit, plus holidays and order cutoffs.

5. Calculate how many bags to purchase

For a café reviewing orders every seven days, a simple order-up-to target covers demand until the next review’s delivery, plus reserve:

Target stock position = demand over review interval and lead time + safety stock.

Using constant daily demand: 1.8947368 × (7 + 3 + 2) = 22.737 kg. This target includes beans on order; it does not mean all 22.737 kg must sit on the shelf at once.

Inventory position = usable on-hand beans + confirmed incoming beans − separately committed beans. Subtract commitments only when they are additional to the demand already forecast, such as an extra catering booking.

With 8 kg on hand, 3 kg incoming and no additional commitments, inventory position is 11 kg. Required purchase = 22.736842 − 11 = 11.737 kg. Round up to 12 bags of 1 kg, subject to supplier minimums. If the result is zero or negative, no additional beans are needed under these assumptions.

Check delivery timing as well as totals. Eight kilograms covers roughly 4.22 days at the example’s usage, enough for the assumed three-day lead time. Stock arriving after you run out cannot prevent an earlier shortage. The coffee order calculator must therefore be paired with a dated delivery plan.

Bring your expected monthly volume and delivery needs to supplier discussions using our supplier negotiation framework.

Keep the coffee order calculator accurate

Record opening stock, receipts, consumption and closing stock by bean type. Reconcile the running balance with weighed physical stock. This follows the record-keeping approach described in BCcampus’s Basic Inventory Procedures. Investigate discrepancies before changing the waste allowance.

Review the coffee order calculator inputs when recipes, opening hours, promotions or suppliers change. Match delivery frequency and bag size to turnover and storage capacity. A lower bulk price can be offset by excess stock or wasted beans. Use our Philippine cost-per-cup guide to connect bean usage with beverage costing.

Should a new café order a full month of beans?

A new café has limited demand history. Start with an explicit sales scenario and confirmed replenishment plan, then compare actual use daily. The correct quantity depends on sales, lead time, minimum order size and usable stock; a month is not a universal rule.

Include the first bean order in your wider opening budget with our café startup costs guide for the Philippines. Use actual quotations for your own plan.

Does a latte use more beans than an espresso?

Only if its recipe uses a larger coffee dose or extra shots. Count the grams used in each finished drink, including whether a double espresso is split across two orders.

Is this an automatic online calculator?

This article provides a formula-based worksheet with worked examples. For an online tool, visit our Coffee Beans Per Month Calculator, then use the lead-time and stock checks above to plan individual purchases.

Method note: examples are original arithmetic using disclosed assumptions. Sources support inventory principles, not the illustrative dose, waste rate, sales volume or supplier lead time. Reviewed September 20, 2026.