Office coffee is a small line item that frequently arrives attached to a large document. If you are the person signing it, these are the five clauses worth finding before you do — and what each one costs in practice when the relationship goes sideways.
1. Multi-year lock-in
Terms of 36 to 60 months are standard in equipment leasing, and coffee vendors borrowed the model. The pitch is that a longer term buys a lower monthly rate. The cost is that you have priced in an assumption you cannot possibly make — that your headcount, office footprint and hybrid policy in 2029 will resemble today's.
Offices that downsized in the last few years learned this the expensive way: the lease payment does not shrink when the floor plan does. Ask: what is the shortest term you offer, and what does it cost?
2. Auto-renewal clauses
The clause usually reads that the agreement renews for a further year unless written notice is given 60 or 90 days before the end date. In a small business, the person who signed it has often changed roles by then, and nobody has that date in a calendar.
The practical result is a year of service you did not actively choose, at rates you did not renegotiate. Ask: does this renew automatically, what is the notice window, and will you email me a reminder before it opens? The answer to the last question is revealing.
3. Equipment buyout fees on cancellation
This is the one that surprises people. The machine was described as "free" or "included," which meant its cost was amortised into your monthly payments. Cancel early and the unrecovered balance comes due as a buyout, a termination fee, or "remaining payments accelerated."
A commercial bean-to-cup machine is a serious piece of equipment, so this figure is not small. Ask: if I cancel in month 14, what is the exact dollar amount I owe, and where in the contract is that formula?
4. Minimum monthly spend
A per-cup rate looks fair until you find the floor underneath it. Minimums are usually expressed as a case commitment or a dollar threshold, and they exist to transfer volume risk from the vendor to you.
They bite in exactly the months you would want relief: summer holidays, the December shutdown, a hybrid week where half the office is home, a slow quarter after a layoff. Ask: is there a minimum, and what is my invoice in a month where the team pours half the usual volume?
5. Vague service commitments
"Regular maintenance" and "prompt service" are not commitments — they are adjectives. A service clause that does not name a frequency and a response window is a clause you cannot enforce, which means when the machine goes down you are in a queue whose length is entirely the vendor's choice.
Ask: how often does a technician physically visit, who is that technician, and what is your response time on a breakdown? A national vendor routing you through a central dispatch number will struggle to answer the middle question at all.
Why we do not use a contract
Every clause above exists to solve a vendor problem: how do I guarantee revenue from a customer who might leave? Our answer is to not need the guarantee. The model is pay-per-cup with $0 equipment cost — no term, no auto-renewal, no buyout, no minimum spend. Cancel anytime and we collect the machine. Weekly cleaning, restocking and repair are included, not a separately priced service level.
That arrangement only works if the coffee is good enough that offices stay voluntarily, which is a healthier incentive for both sides than a 48-month term. It also means the machine has to keep earning its spot — our technicians are on a local Burlington route through Oakville and Hamilton, not a national dispatch queue.
Before you sign anything
Take the five questions above to whoever is quoting you, including us, and compare the answers side by side. Then test the actual coffee: our free one-week trial is a week of real service with no paperwork attached, and if it does not land we take the machine back at no charge. Machine options and sizing are on the machines page.