Choosing an Office Coffee Machine by Headcount

The most common office coffee mistake isn't buying a bad machine — it's buying the wrong size. Undersize and you get morning queues and burned-out equipment; oversize and you pay for capacity nobody uses. Machine sizing is really just arithmetic on your headcount. Here's how to run it.

Start with cups per day, not people

Plan for 1.5–2 cups per employee per day — some drink none, the engineers make up for them. Then account for the shape of demand: roughly half those cups happen in the 8–10am window. A machine that can technically brew your daily total but can't keep up with the morning rush still fails the office.

• 10 people ≈ 15–20 cups/day
• 40 people ≈ 60–80 cups/day
• 100 people ≈ 150–200 cups/day

Small offices (up to ~25 people)

One compact bean-to-cup machine covers this comfortably. A unit like the De Jong Duke Nio handles espresso drinks, fresh-ground coffee, and specialty options for a team this size without dominating the kitchen counter. At this scale the decision is mostly about drink variety — see the beverage lineup for what a modern machine can pour.

Mid-size offices (25–75 people)

This is the range where sizing failures are most common — usually an office that grew from 20 to 50 and kept its original machine. You want a high-capacity bean-to-cup unit like the De Jong Duke Virtu or Zia, rated for up to 200 cups a day, with larger hoppers and faster recovery between drinks. Restocking moves from weekly toward twice-weekly at the top of this range.

Large offices (75+ people)

Past ~75 people, stop thinking “bigger machine” and start thinking “more machines.” Two or more units — split across floors, wings, or break rooms — beat one giant machine for three reasons:

• Redundancy. One machine down doesn't mean zero coffee.
• Queue math. Two shorter lines clear a rush twice as fast.
• Walking distance. Coffee thirty seconds away gets used; coffee two floors away breeds delivery-app habits.

High-volume floors also pair well with an airpot brewing setup like the Newco FC-AP — up to 120 cups a day into insulated dispensers that serve a crowd instantly, alongside a bean-to-cup unit for espresso drinks.

Sizing rules of thumb

• Match the machine's rated daily capacity to your peak, not your average.
• Over ~75 people, add machines rather than size up further.
• Hire in bursts? Size for the headcount you'll have in a year — or better, use a service plan where the machine can be swapped as you grow.
• Whatever the size, keep the service schedule proportional: more cups means more frequent cleaning and restocking.

Skip the sizing homework

This is literally the first thing we calculate on every quote. Tell us your headcount and layout in the quote form, and we'll recommend the right machine — or combination — from the lineup we service across the South Bay. Machine, installation, restocking, and maintenance arrive as one plan, sized to your team; the cost guide explains how the pricing works.