You run a 50-person office and the drip pot has to go. The shortlist comes down to two architectures: a pod machine (Keurig-style single serve) or a bean-to-cup automatic. Here's the comparison we'd want if we were on your side of the table — which, during a free trial, we effectively are.
Cost per cup
Pods retail between $0.60 and $1.20 each before milk and cups. At a 50-person office averaging 1.5 cups per person per day, that's 75 cups daily — $50–$90 a day, $13,000–$23,000 a year, plus the machine, plus someone's time managing pod inventory. Bean-to-cup service on per-cup billing typically lands well under pod economics at this volume, because whole beans are dramatically cheaper per gram than podded coffee — and with our model the machine, installation and weekly service are included in the per-cup price.
Taste and variety
Pods are pre-ground coffee, sealed months before brewing. Bean-to-cup grinds seconds before extraction and pulls real espresso, which means real cappuccinos, lattes and americanos — a menu, not a flavour list. For 50 people you'll also have tea drinkers and hot-chocolate people; a good automatic covers them from the same touchscreen.
Waste
75 cups a day through a pod machine is roughly 19,000 pods a year into the bin. The bean-to-cup equivalent is a grounds bin that gets composted and zero packaging. If your company has any sustainability reporting at all, this difference is material.
Maintenance burden
This is the honest trade-off. Pod machines tolerate neglect; bean-to-cup machines have grinders and milk systems that need real cleaning. Self-managed, that's a chore someone will eventually skip. As a service with weekly professional cleaning included, it's not your problem at all — which is exactly why we bundle it.
The verdict for 50 people
At small scale (under 10 people), pods' simplicity can win. At 50, the math flips hard: bean-to-cup wins on cost per cup, wins on taste, wins on waste, and ties on maintenance only if someone else is doing it. The 350 Touch or 550 Touch is the right size for that headcount — run the week-long test and let your team vote with their cups.