NBC Select Does the Math: Keurig Alta Pays Off After About 73 Lattes

An NBC Select writer who paid $9.53 for a large iced latte ran the numbers on Keurig’s $499.99 Alta, and found it pays for itself after about 73 homemade lattes, as long as each one replaces a drink you’d otherwise buy.

The math, per NBC Select: a three-shot latte uses one Single Shot and one Double Shot AltaRound. At Keurig’s announced prices of $9.99 and $10.99 per eight-count box, that’s about $2.62 in coffee, or $2.25 with the $1.50-per-box subscription discount. Add roughly 63 cents of milk and the ingredients come to about $3.25 a drink. Counting the machine and the four boxes included with it, the writer figures the break-even comes after 73 lattes (70 with a subscription), and a year of daily use averages about $4.50 a drink. Swap in a $6 café latte and break-even stretches to around 167 drinks.

The three-week test turned up a few other useful details. The Alta is about 15 inches deep without its water tank and 19 inches with it, so measure first. The frother peaked at about 75 decibels. Used rounds left in the bin for several days didn’t grow mold, which NBC Select says it has seen with other plastic-free pods. On taste, testers found it much like regular Keurig coffee, maybe a little better. It still brews K-Cups.

Our take: the honest line in this review is the one NBC Select itself makes: the Alta only saves money on drinks you stop buying. If your café habit is a plain coffee rather than a three-shot latte, the numbers don’t come close. For that, our Keurig cost-per-cup breakdown is the better guide, and the Alta explainer covers what the new rounds are.