My SodaStream Experiment: The Results

A little over three months ago I bought a SodaStream and started a little experiment: Would I like the SodaStream drinks enough, and would it save me any money over buying cans of Diet Dr Pepper?

Start-Up Costs

The cost analysis was fairly straightforward. I started with the following items:

SodaStream Source Metal Edition, $73.59

Extra Bottles (1 large, 2 small), $34.98

Extra Carbonator, $29.99

Total: $138.56

The small bottles were necessary because I absolutely hated drinking the Diet Dr Pete out of a glass – flat and yucky. So I use the big bottles to carbonate the water, then immediately pour it into the two small bottles and mix two small bottles of pop. I leave the big one to air dry, and I only wash the small bottles every few days because I’m the only one drinking from them. So very little clean-up.

I also bought another carbonator, because even though I have a good idea of how long it will take me to finish one, I don’t want to be caught without a full one. So I always have a full one in reserve now.

Incidentally, here’s how you can tell when your carbonator is almost empty:

 

 

I’ve also learned not to chill the water beforehand. Yes, it should be cold, but when it’s fridge-cold I find that I get a lot of ice build-up on the nozzle. It might be hard to see because the bottle was a little frosty, but that white stuff sticking out of the bottom of the nozzle and curling to the left a little bit is ice. When ice forms on the nozzle, the carbon dioxide gas can’t come out. It’s easy to clear, but then it’s hard to tell how much fizz you have in your bottle and it’s easy to over- or under-carbonate it.

Per-Bottle Costs

Each time I made a bottle of pop I would be using some flavoring, which was $5.39 per bottle, and using up some of the carbonator tank, which costs $16.32 to replace.

So the big questions was, how long were the flavoring and carbonator tank going to hold out? I would need that info in order to calculate the cost per liter for the SodaStream.

I’ve found that on average, the carbonator makes 31 liters of seltzer before it has to be replaced, which is $0.52 per liter. One flavoring bottle makes 13 liters of pop, which is $0.41 liter. So, the total cost for a liter of SodaStream pop is $0.93 per liter. That doesn’t really sound very inexpensive. For my husband, who normally buys Caffeine-Free Diet Coke in 2-liter bottles, he wouldn’t really save anything.

I buy cans, though. They cost me, on average, $0.47 per can. Since each can is 12 ounces, and each “liter” of SodaStream pop is actually 30 ounces, five cans of Diet Dr Pepper are equal to 2 liters of Soda Stream pop.

Five cans of Diet Dr Pepper cost me $2.35. Two bottles of Soda Stream pop cost me $1.86. I save $0.49 for every two bottles I make, basically a quarter per bottle.

I would have to make 566 bottles in order to make back my start-up costs. I’ve been making about 2 bottles a day, so it would take me about forty weeks to earn it back.

Other Factors

But, that’s not the whole story.

When I drink from cans, I usually don’t finish them. Who knows how much I was actually drinking each week, but I was going through an average of six cans per day, or 42 per week, the equivalent of 17 liters of SodaStream pop. But, I’m drinking, on average, 14 bottles of SodaStream pop per week. So, that’s an additional savings of $2.79 per week. At that rate, the SodaStream would earn back its costs in twenty weeks – half the time. I think that’s a more realistic number to use (as opposed to just the savings per liter made), since that’s my actual savings each week.

Now, if this were a blog about how to save money, that might decide things. In twenty weeks I’ll earn my starting costs back, and after that I save a little each week.

But this isn’t a frugal blog, and frankly I don’t care about saving a few bucks a week. Plus, if you’re really focused on saving money, you’re probably not buying your pop at full price from a grocery delivery service. You’re buying it on sale. It’s totally possible that in real-world circumstances, SodaStream pop would actually cost you more money.

Of course, the SodaStream commercials would lead you to believe otherwise. I have to guess that when they calculate their own costs, they’re only pushing the carbonator one time, not the three that I’m doing (you can see the video in my previous post for that). That would make the cost per liter significantly cheaper. But I don’t want my pop with only a little fizz. So, their commercials are a bit misleading.

There are other factors that come into play as well. I order the flavoring online, but I have to swap out the carbonators in person. Depending on location, that might be a big deal to you, or it might not be. There happens to be a store that’s very convenient for me to do the swap, so it’s not a big deal.

Another factor is not having to deal with dozens of empty cans each week. I used to leave them everywhere (I’m kind-of a slob). Now, with just two small bottles that I drink out of, I have to keep track of them. And, I don’t have to rinse, store, and get rid of all those cans each week. That’s been nice.

The last factor I have to take into consideration is taste. When it’s just been made, I like the SodaStream pop just as much as a can of pop. But, by the time I’m down to the last third of a bottle, it’s pretty much flat. This isn’t the fault of the SodaStream, the same thing happens when I occasionally buy 20-ounce bottles of pop at the store. I’ve considered getting even smaller bottles than the ones I’m using now, but I’d be adding even more steps to the process, more to wash, etc. Totally not worth it.

Conclusion

I wish I could declare that this experiment was either a rousing success or a definite failure, but I just can’t. It was basically in the middle.

I’ve got about six weeks left to go before I’ve earned my costs back, and then I have to decide whether or not I’m going to continue to use it. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do.

If you live in a fourth-floor walk-up and you’re sick of carrying heavy bottles of pop up stairs, this might be worth it for you.

If you want to save money and happen to like your pop a little on the flat side, this would also probably be a good choice for you.

If you’d like to be able to serve seltzer to guests, this is great to have around. I’ve done that several times. It also came in very handy yesterday when I was making waffles and needed 2.5 cups of seltzer for the recipe – I used to have to keep cans of seltzer on hand for that, just in case.

If you drink a lot of pop but have very limited storage space, this would definitely be a great product for you.

But if you want to cut your soda costs by a significant amount, I just don’t see how that’s possible in real-life circumstances.