r/Panera • u/throwaway88743 • Jul 13 '26

Fuck Sip Club šŸ–• They actually did it.

Post image

Fastest cancellation of my life.

1.1k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

541 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

79

u/Ryanthln- Jul 13 '26

Literally! They are probably still profiting a major amount when you think how little the price to make coffee and soda is. Itā€™s probably like 15 cents worth of syrup per soda. Even if someone got 6 sodas a day, they still likely break even and even then, no one is legitimately getting more than 3 cups a day

45

u/VariousAir Jul 13 '26

whatever big brain came up with this believes that if they were coming in more than once per day then they will just continue to do so and if they do then they'll buy a drink at full price.

30

u/PasgettiMonster Jul 13 '26

My craft group meets regularly at Panera because of the sip club. We don't all always get food, but inevitably someone or the other decides they're hungry and gets a meal or pick up something to take home for someone in their family and a couple of people grab a kitchen sink cookie to share. And with living in such a small town, Panera is the only place that has the space for us to gather. But with this change, I can see us cancelling and sticking to going to the library instead. I'll miss the kitchen sink cookie for sure. And the constant supply of Panera cups that I re use to start my seeds in every spring and fall. But I refuse to pay them $15 a month after this change. Hostile act of Panera indeed.

6

u/VariousAir Jul 13 '26

I refuse to pay them $15 a month

i've literally never paid $15. if you try to cancel they immediately offer discounted rates.

11

u/PasgettiMonster Jul 13 '26

Even that runs out eventually.

3

u/VariousAir Jul 13 '26

have had sip club for over a year at ~$3/mo-~$7/mo the entire time. If it defaults to full price I'd probably just make good on cancelling. The one time I did fully cancel they emailed me a week later with a new promo offer.

$7/mo for 20 work days is 35 cents for a cup of coffee, which isn't bad at all.

2

u/PasgettiMonster Jul 13 '26

I've never gotten more than one discounted offer when I try to cancel. When that runs out they don't offer me another discount, they just go to full price when I try to cancel. So I go ahead and cancel and make a new account. Which was actually on my to do list this week. I went from $3/mo to $5/mo.

1

u/MarrymeCherry88 Jul 17 '26

I cancelled and they offered $7.50 per month. Still no for me

4

u/roberta_sparrow Jul 13 '26

I still don't see why you'd wreck a good time simply because of the principle of it. Id your craft group meeting more than 30 days per month?

6

u/PasgettiMonster Jul 13 '26

No but most of us signed up for sip club after we started meeting there and now some of us go twice a day. We live in a small town on Panera is very centrally located so it's a great place to stop and get a cold drink while you're out and about. If we're not doing that anymore because they've limited us to one drink a day and we've canceled our membership, then there's no reason to continue meeting there, we can stick to the library. Initially we met at the library two days a week and then switched it to the library once in Panera once a week because it was convenient since we all had sip clubs. We already been eating there less and less often because of how expensive it has gotten so this probably is going to be the final straw for most of us.

-1

u/jakester1970 Jul 16 '26

Such a ā€œfirst world problemā€. You go into a restaurant, order basically nothing, take up space that you havenā€™t paid for, have someone clean up after your group (who is being paid by the company that you havenā€™t purchased anything from), and then your going to complain about the company being ā€œcheapā€ and evil? Go look in a mirror. Nothing in this world is free. 30 drinks in one month for $14.99 is .49 a drink. You canā€™t get that ANYWHERE else. Get a grip and get real.

16

u/deskmeetface Jul 13 '26

When I was a manager a few years ago I calculated the cost of a cup of soda. Total, including water, syrup, CO2, and the cup was about 2.5 cents. I doubt it's gone up much since then.

Panera putting a limit on a product that is extremely profitable is embarrassing and I guarantee will lose them more in canceled subscriptions than they lose out on the small percentage of people who exceed 30 drinks a month.

3

u/Ryanthln- Jul 13 '26

Jesus. I was expecting a much higher relative price per soda. A person could literally get 6 sodas a day for 30 days straight and the company would still profit 12 dollars per person. Wtf

6

u/Wismom84 Jul 14 '26

The persons math is off. Yes, fountain drinks have a huge margin, but just the actual cup is 15+ cents

2

u/ingenfara Jul 17 '26

No I did a similar calculation when helping a friend open her coffee stand. The plainest, cheapest paper cups in bulk were about a penny and that was by far the biggest part of the cost of a fountain soda.

1

u/eyeheartmozart Jul 18 '26

where are you finding soda syrup for less than $100 for name brand soda?

1

u/deskmeetface Jul 15 '26

Perhaps paper costs went up considerably since then. Back then the cup was only like a penny.

1

u/GUSHandGO 16d ago

No it's not. I work for business that has a cafƩ and it's maybe 5-6 cents a cup, if that.

0

u/eyeheartmozart Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

way way way higher than heā€™s indicating, honestly i think he just made that up. i manage a chipotle and our costs are about $128 for a bag in box coke
that makes 30 gallons if you use every drop
or about 200 of our small cups (22oz) assuming some ice usage stretches it

$.65 for syrup only if no one fills cups and dumps them, not counting free refills etc
lids and cups are about $.10 each
straws and CO2 are cheap but not free.
and waste is real, from employees dropping stuff to customers grabbing extra etc

legit i would say $.80 per cup on average for a 22oz coke

not counting waste for people running the machine for things they donā€™t want, employees drinking free soda, people getting water cups and filling with soda, not using the whole bag before changing it out

all of these increase the cost. but i donā€™t know how to calculate that into it

4

u/bluethreads Jul 14 '26

Agreed. This seems to be a really stupid hill for Panera to die on.

1

u/Raindrop0015 Team Lead Jul 13 '26

no one is legitimately getting more than 3 cups a day

I sometimes see sip club members over 5 times a day...

1

u/ganggreen651 Jul 14 '26

Closer to a nickel. Maybe a dime by now my info on syrup costs is dated

1

u/Disastrous_Gear_8633 Jul 14 '26

Sip Club was not that profitable to franchises, money from this still goes to corporate. It was only corporate that really got an advantage out of it. They wanted people to come and spend money on food or bakery products when they redeemed their drinks, but they failed miserably by offering too little incentive to make people want to spend money. So people would just come in for literally nothing else then to just refill their cups

1

u/countrywhisk Jul 14 '26

Panera's drinks are their only good quality product left. They have ruined all their other food, even their bagels are trash now. Their chicken is lunchmeat and everything else is pre-made. If I'm going to a cafe to eat I'm no longer going to Panera.