SodaStream Economics

If you're willing to get your hands a little dirty, there's an alternate option that doesn't involve buying into a razor blade business model.<p>At a welding supply shop, they'll sell you a 5lb tank of CO2 (around $60 initially, then $15-20 for each refill thereafter). If you then go to a homebrew supply store, you can buy a CO2 regulator (~$70, depending on quality), the appropriate tubing and a ball-lock adapter (&#60; $10), and a carbonator cap ($15, something like <a href="http://morebeer.com/view_product/18250/" rel="nofollow">http://morebeer.com/view_product/18250/</a>). That setup'll let you take any plastic soda bottle (1-liter, 2-liter, whatever) and carbonate it directly. I have a CO2 tank for kegging my home-brewed beer and soda, and I frequently use my carbonator cap to make small test batches of soda before mixing up a full five gallon batch in a keg.<p>A 5lb tank of CO2 will last for 15-20 5-gallon kegs of beer. There's no easy apples-to-apples comparison (soda is more highly carbonated than beer, and I'm not sure of the effect on efficiency from carbonating such small batches), but any way you work it paying $15-20 for a refill is a much better deal than paying for SodaStream cartridges.

This is another alternative: <a href="http://www.fizzgiz.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.fizzgiz.com/</a><p>"Higher carbonation levels may be reached with the Fizz Giz carbonator. More effective carbonation is achieved through agitation during the process. Kitchen countertop units do not allow you to agitate bottles while carbonating. You simply can't mix the CO2 effectively without agitation. The big soda bottling companies know this. Our competitors know this. But since you can't pick up their machine and shake it, they downplay this important fact. One of the biggest consumer complaints by those with countertop carbonators is disappointment with low carbonation levels achieved."<p>I make flavors for electronic cigarettes, so I have been considering making them for this or a sort of Mio alternative. If anyone wants to beta test some flavors, please contact me.

This neglects one important consideration (for me, anyway), which is convenience. It's nice not to have to maintain a stock of bottles or cans.

They consider "frequent" to be two liters per week?<p>One small glass of water is about 1/4 liter. A pint glass is nearly double that. So if you drink one pint glass of water per day, that's already far beyond what they're calling "frequent".<p>And of course, the above is based on a person who lives alone. If there's more than one person in your household, it pays off even faster.

Nice article. SodaStream has found a sweet spot where it's providing a convenience and savings for the end customer, while still making profit hand-over-fist on the consumables, and probably even on the base machine. My family of four probably consumes close to 4L per day of SodaStream output, 70% as fizzy water, 30% as diet soda.<p>The project on my to-do list (please don't do this unless you know what you're doing) is to cut the top off of an expired SodaStream cylinder and fashion it into an adaptor for the hose from my 5 lb. CO2 tank. 5 lbs. of CO2 will yield something like 500 L of carbonated water, at the same $15 per fill as the SodaStream 60L refills. This should bring the cost down to $0.05 per liter or less. SodaStream will still get my money for their soda syrups, but I can disintermediate their highway-robbery CO2 service.

FYI, our local Bed Bath &#38; Beyond, which sells the SodaStream syrups and equipment, will refill the CO2 cartridges at a much lower price than buying new.

Bias:<p>""" The “Diet Coke” was a bit of a disaster. Not only was the “fake” easily identifiable, but it tasted pretty bad. No one on the team would be happy to have the homemade version replace our real Diet Coke, no matter how much money we saved. """<p>Non-sugary flavors are an acquired taste, since we aren't evolved to drink them. Diet Coke tastes bad, at first. (As does coffee, beer, etc). Your brain rejects the unusual flavor, as a poison-prevention reflex. If you don't die, you get accustomed to the flavor (and maybe develop a flavor-&#62;caffeine-buzz associaton that makes the taste feel perkier)<p>If you have been drinking Diet Coke for a long time, you just don't remember how bad the first one tasted.

We (my GF and I), during warmer weather, used to go through perhaps 1.5 litres of sparkling water a day, in the form of 500ml bottles bought as a 6-pack. Buying sparkling water in bulk doesn't work; big bottles lose fizz every time you open them, especially since you can't help agitating them putting them in and out of the fridge. With small bottles, you only open them once or twice.<p>6-packs of sparkling water bottles make our SodaStream look much cheaper than the analysis in the article. The SodaStream device itself was reasonably cheap too, I don't remember how much, but no more than 40 GBP. Overpriced for the simple mechanism it is, but kept our hands clean.<p>We do not generally use the SodaStream flavours. They're almost all horrible. The cola tastes like cola-flavoured penny sweets, and of course to achieve the concentrations required they need to use artificial sweeteners even for non-diet versions. They're all too sweet. The one product they sell that's any good - MyWater, and specifically the lemon-lime essence bottle in the three-pack - has been out of stock for the past 6 months in the UK.<p>We use the sparkling water for the things that we used to use store-bought for - watering down fruit juices, which are almost invariably 10% sugar in the UK from grape or apple juice filler, and for use with other commercially bought fruit and fruit squash concentrates.

I had been thinking about getting a SodaStream for a while now since I drink a fair amount of the Safeway Refreshe brand flavored "fizzy waters". But I didn't realize the machine used a proprietary bottle. I usually buy mine in the 4-packs since it is actually cheaper oz-for-oz than the larger single bottles. But I like to take a few 4-packs to work and drink them throughout the day/week. When I'm running low, I bring in another stock. I don't like the idea of always bringing the empty SodaStream bottle(s) home to refill and take back to work the next day. So I'd probably need a dozen or so of their bottles just for work. And while it may be wasteful, I also have the convenience of taking a bottle where I'm going and then just tossing it when I'm done rather than lugging it around until I get home. And if the SodaStream flavors are garbage then I have less desire to get one.<p>With the SodaStream, I envisioned being able to take the bottles I <i>do</i> buy (and didn't toss) and reuse them for the SoadStream... always knowing that if I wanted to, I didn't have to keep track of the refilled bottle when I was done. Maybe I'm lazy or selfish for not wanting to keep track of an empty, reusable bottle... so be it. But I like the convenience of the option to toss the bottle when I'm done.<p>I also wish the article had some numbers on life expectancy of the machine. Its all fine and dandy to accept the reality of needing 4yrs for the machine to pay for itself... until you discover that it failed before then.<p>Based on my expected use pattern (both refilling AND buying new) I doubt my machine would last long enough to break even.

One other omission from the analysis is there may be a fair amount of waste when you buy large bottles of soda water from the store. Economically it would make sense to buy 2L bottle, but I may not be drinking it fast enough to warrant that. You lose a large amount of fizziness after day one, and by day 3, you just dump out anything that is left. With a Soda making device, you always have fresh fizzy water on demand.

Only one part of this review really matters, and that's that the "cola" and the "energy drink" both suck, read: your kids will refuse to drink them.<p>Money wasted.

Another data point: in a household of 2, we may consume 2-3 liters on peak days, probably an average of 1 a day during warm periods in the year. His math is probably right, but his assumptions don't seem to be backed by anything but anecdote! Also, saving bottles is a footnote, but I think environmental benefit adds up quickly when you compare the cost of transporting lots of bottles from the bottler to the store to your house to the recycling center. Wish he had some hard real-world usage data available.

The only kitchen product that requires an end user license agreement: <a href="http://www.sodastreamusa.com/faq.aspx#b11" rel="nofollow">http://www.sodastreamusa.com/faq.aspx#b11</a>

One important thing that they neglect is that liquid is big, and heavy!<p>As a city dweller who doesn't usually take a car to the grocery store, I don't usually buy more than a few liters of liquid at a time. I like drinking carbonated water, but I don't want to lug it home, and I don't want to have to store it in my small-ish kitchen.<p>I wonder what percent of consumers I'm in. 3? 5? Maybe not enough to matter, but I bet even many car-driving consumers don't like carrying a big case of soda.

One thing I found curious on the price economics was the comparison against soda. They listed a price of $0.70 per liter for the SodaStream soda and $1.08 per liter for a 2 liter from the store. Was that a mistake? I'm used to picking up a two liter for $1 for the whole bottle ($0.80 if I'm willing to go generic brand). Did they make a mistkae and not normalize the $1.08 price for the two liter or are people really paying $2.16 for two liters of pop.

I love SodaStream despite the razor blade model. For me it is not really about cost saving, it's about time and energy saving. Making on demand sparkling water is just much easier than lugging 3-6 1.5 liter bottles of sparkling water up to my 3rd floor apartment ever trip to the market. Maybe this is different for people who can drive right up to their door, but for those of us who live in cities that's often not an option.

I don't mean to be rude, but I'd love to see a similar article on pricenomics. I've never really understood your business model.

SodaStream hacking: Combine various flavors. Mountain Dew + grape is fantastic (and diet).<p>I've also taken to getting sugar free flavors from Torani and mixing them with other flavors. I love cream soda + vanilla bean + strawberry. The combinations are virtually endless.

How long until Coca Cola ventures into this home-bev market?

I personally go through an average of a litre per day, and after I became hooked, I was really worried that they wouldn't be in business for long (often one off companies like this don't last) so it's nice to see they are doing well.