The Ultimate Guide to Starbucks Stars
For half a year now, I’ve averaged $217 a month on Starbucks. Based on what I now know, I’ve lost $255 from a combination of choosing the wrong rewards and not optimizing my spend. Don’t make the same mistake I did!
On base, you get 1 Star for every dollar you spend, excluding tax. At the ‘highest’ level, 400 stars nets you $20 off of merchandise, which roughly gives each star a base value of 5 cents per Star, but we’ll see later why this is severely understating the value of this final tier.
At the base tier, an extra espresso shot costs $1.25 for most drinks like lattes, but for Americanos they’re only $0.80. So the value of each star at the lowest level is between 3.2 and 6 cents per Star.
If you’re the type of person that seldom orders Starbucks and thus could never see yourself earning 400 stars in six months or less (since Stars expire six months after they were earned), then this might be your best bet. But if you’re that type of person, it’s highly unlikely you have an account, let alone the app.
At the 100 star level, you have a choice between the bakery items and caffeine. If you’re a bakery kind of person, the chocolate croissant (roughly $5.45 though prices vary by location) would put you at 5.45 cents per Star. If you’re a true caffeine degenerate and have no regard for your taste buds, you can get the trenta-sized iced coffee with 8 extra espresso shots.
Starbucks has an unofficial policy to cut you off after 8 shots (the daily safe limit of caffeine for adults), though it really depends on your barista and how they’re feeling on any given day. I’ve never personally pushed it past 8, though I’ve heard people on Reddit ask for 10 or even 12 shots. Even at 8 shots at a venti size, this would easily put you at the roughly 16.15 cents per Star. At a trenta with 10 shots, you’re at 18.3 cents per Star. Enough coffee for the whole week!
One thing to note is that if you were purely interested value, you wouldn’t be going to Starbucks at all. Just get a giant bag of beans from Costco and call it a day. So Starbucks is essentially betting that, while this little loophole exists, there is no real market segment of people who want to take advantage of it. (If you’re a market maker who wants to connect Starbucks regulars who don’t need their own Stars with iced coffee degens, please come talk to me. I’m not interested in the company, but I’d love to meet the type person who starts an endeavor like this.)
At the 200 star level, you’re starting to get more options open to you, including hot breakfast and other drinks. I’m going to assume by this point you have taste buds — otherwise your ceiling is the 100 star level; it doesn’t get better than that in terms of pure value. Even assuming you have taste buds, if you want to beat the 25 star reward in terms of value (6 cents per star), then you need to select a hand crafted drink that’s over $12.
This is harder than it seems though, as even a venti Mocha Cookie Crumble frap with a max 12 pumps of frap roast (extra 50 cents), 12 pumps of mocha sauce sweet cream (extra $1.25)is only $8.89. If you’re purely taste bud driven, then obviously it’s nearly always going to be worth it since you can now get a free frap where you otherwise couldn’t. Just know that, between all the fraps and other sandwiches, the average value seems to be around 4.8 cents per Star at this level. So unless you really like fraps (which many do!), in my opinion it’s not worth it.
At the 300 star level, there’s a lot of traps. Obviously prices vary based on location, but protein boxes are just an absolute no go. Even the most expensive one is right around $8 after tax, which gives you a measly 2.66 cents per Star. Even if you love protein boxes, why not just buy it outright? The at home coffee pouches are roughly $9 per bag, which is still only 3 cents per Star. The most expensive sandwhich I can find is roughly $8.45 after tax, which still is only 2.8 cents per Star. All in all, I’d just leave this reward completely alone unless you really like to eat at Starbucks and not drink anything there.
Lastly, at the 400 star level, you get $20 off of select merchandise, which puts us at 5 cents per Star. It seems underwhelming, especially for the highest tier. You’ve spent half an iPhone on Starbucks, and they just give you $20? This was the reason I redeemed at the 200 star level multiple times before doing the math. If you’re a very enterprising reseller, know that there are some absolutely insane ebay listings for some very exclusive, limited edition Starbucks merch. But for most of us, the best thing to get is a non-plastic, BPA-free insulated tumbler that works for hot and cool drinks. Most of them are priced right around $20, which should cover you, though some are at the $30 price point. Bringing your own cup gives you 10 cents off on every order and 25 bonus stars, up to three times a day!
The value you get from this really depends on your order size and your typical method of redemption. For me, my typical order is a flat white for me and a mocha for my wife (both grande) — so around $12. And my typical redemption is a free grande mocha at the 100 Star level ($6). So 6 cents per Star. But with the Starbucks branded tumbler, we go from earning 10 Stars per visit to 35. Now in just 3 orders I can rack up the 100 Stars, and I go from $100 of spend* for a $6 reward to just $30 of spend, bringing my value up to a whopping 20 cents per Star. If your typical order size was just for one person (say just a grande flat white), then all of a sudden your value goes to 27 cents per Star.
All of these are obviously calculations without factoring in the app, which is the biggest game changer for Starbucks customers. Double and triple star days, personalized challenges, and random rewards make it quite easy to rack up stars. It’s hard to generalize since these personalized notifications are, well, personalized, but as someone with a daily coffee habit, it’s really the main reason to use Starbucks over any other location. Based on my own promotion history, I earn about 35 stars a week from the app’s various challenges, so in practice I’m getting around 40 cents per Star in value. It’s important to stay disciplined and not simply chase challenges for the gamification. Usually the challenges will be around getting you to purchase adjacent items or things you wouldn’t normally buy and get you to walk up the spend ladder to become a whale. This will obviously eat away at the value you get from Stars (though even if you do chase challenges, the value will not fall below ~10 cents a Star even on the worst weeks, and if you have a mug, it really won’t fall below 17 cents a Star from my experience, assuming you’re completing drink challenges and not bakery ones).
And most importantly, this flat white / mocha combo order is what we would have gotten anyway even if it were free. So we’re getting this type of value without sacrificing the taste buds or pushing the limits on healthy caffeine consumption. By the way, for those of you who are friendly with the barista, they can code you up for the bonus even without a Starbucks branded cup.
For most people however, this tier of reward is simply out of the question The average Starbucks customer spends $5.65 per visit and only $25 a month on Starbucks (once a week visit)— at this level of spend, your Stars will expire before ever hitting 400.
Feel free to play around with these numbers yourself in this simple spreadsheet I made! For example, if know that with 100 Star redemption you’d get a venti mocha every time, just change the B3 cell to be 6.7 ($6.70 / 100). One small note is that the B6 cell (reward value for 400 stars) only works right now if your preferred redemption tier (G7 cell) is not also 400.
So what are the main takeaways? Decide what level of Starbucks customer you’re going to be and stick with it.
- If you’re all in, then get the 400 star mug and use it everywhere. With a weekday habit, your own mug, and the app, you’ll rack up 200 stars a week without issue. Once you get the mug, redeem at the level that suites your taste buds and budget instead of twisting yourself into a pretzel to order something you’d never get.
- If you’re an average customer who will never earn 400 stars in six months, then for most people the 25 or 100 star levels are the sweet spot.
- If you don’t know whether Starbucks is for you or not, then save your Stars. You have six months to decide. The worst thing that you can do is decide to spend them early and only later realize you could have gotten the tumbler / mug! That’s how you leave potentially hundreds of dollars on the table.
- And most importantly, be friendly to your barista! They have more power than you realize.
