My Trade Coffee Review
Is this Coffee Subscription Worth Trying?
Trade is a coffee subscription and online retailer that connects people with high-quality coffee from over 50 of the best roasters in the US. Whether you buy their coffee as a one-time order or via a subscription, it’s roasted fresh and shipped directly from the roaster to you.
When you sign up, you’ll take a short quiz to pair you with the right Trade coffee and subscription. Receiving a coffee that was chosen with my preferences in mind was amazing. While the matchmaking process isn’t without flaw (it took me a couple of stabs at the quiz to feel confident in the coffee that was picked for me), the experience was excellent and even changed the way I approached making coffee at home!
Updated on 5/26/20 to reflect up-to-date subscription choices.
COUPON: Expiring Soon! Use code MSA50 to save 50% off your first bag of coffee!
Pros & Cons
The Pros
- All roasters carried are heavily vetted by the Trade team, so you know you’re going to receive amazing coffee.
- Coffee beans are roasted upon your order and shipped fresh, directly from the roaster to your door.
- If you don’t like your first match, you can have it replaced if you reach out to the Trade team within 1 week.
- You can customize the type of experience you want—a new coffee exploratory adventure or a consistent delivery schedule.
- You can “snooze” your subscription anytime if you need to pause for any reason.
- The coffee is invariably high-quality and often comes in a package with great design. (Fun bonus!)
- Their website has lots of how-tos to help you brew your best cup of coffee every day.
The Cons
- With a regular shipment cadence comes a lot of notifications—they give a head’s up about your next order’s status every step of the way. While that’s obviously good info to have, it feels like a lot of emails comin’ in.
- The cheapest bag they carry is about $15, which could feel expensive for a coffee you’ve never tried.
- If you don’t like a coffee you received, but it’s not your first bag, it’s not covered by their guarantee. They do, however, encourage you to reach out to their Customer Experience team so they can “do [their] best to make it right.”
- Rather than choosing your subscription option, you are assigned one based on your quiz answers and have to retake the quiz to try for a different outcome.
Is It Worth It?
- If you’re willing to spend a few extra bucks for a specialty coffee experience, then yes!
I’d Recommend Trade If
- You want to drink amazing coffee at home but are overwhelmed by the seemingly endless options (Trade itself carries 400+ different types of coffee).
- You’re an established coffee-lover who wants to make obtaining your beans easier.
About Trade Coffee
The Subscription: Trade Coffee
The Cost:
- Varies based on which coffee you’re matched with, but ranges from $15-$25.
- A 15% discount is automatically applied to your total when you place another order within 30 days of your last one.
COUPON: Expiring Soon! Use code MSA50 to save 50% off your first bag of coffee!
Shipping:
- Ships within the continental US. They currently do not ship to PO boxes, APO boxes, Puerto Rico, Canada, or internationally.
- Shipping costs $2 per bag. Orders of $30+ are eligible for free shipping.
- Shipping is free for orders placed within 30 days of your last order (in addition to the 15% discount mentioned above).
- Orders ship directly from the roasters to your home.
This box was sent to us at no cost for review. (Check out our review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
Subscription Options
Trade Coffee offers a few different subscription plans:
The Hookup
- 1 bag of coffee arrives every 1, 2, 3, 4, or 6 weeks—your choice.
- You pay per bag, so each order will be $15-$22.
- It’ll be a different coffee each delivery, but will always apply to your preferences.
The Classics
- 1-2 bags of coffee arrive every 1, 2, 3, 4, or 6 weeks—your choice.
- Receive 1 bag per delivery for $14.75, or bundle and save 15% with a 2-bag shipment.
- You can expect the same bag(s) with each delivery.
Auto-Reorder
- You choose the coffee and the delivery schedule.
How It Works
Similar to clothing subscription boxes, you start out with a quiz to let Trade know about your coffee expertise, preferences, and how you make and take your coffee. Based on your answers, their system will generate a coffee suggestion for you, as well as a suggestion of which subscription they think would be a good fit. From there, you can choose if you’d like to receive your beans whole or ground and your delivery frequency.
Taking the Quiz
I really had to look within to answer the question about my relationship with coffee. I think we as a culture really romanticize coffee, and I had to stop myself from trying to seem more experienced than I really am! I chose the “intermediate stage” option. The questions that follow ask about the brewing method you use, whether you take any type of milk or cream in your coffee, what roast level you enjoy, whether you like to experiment with different flavors, and whether you buy ground coffee vs. whole beans. Similar to the ‘Why It Matters” section above, they give tips and explanations for each quiz question.
And, ta-da! Here’s what was chosen for me based on my answers. I thought this coffee looked and sounded pretty rad. The results page also paired me with The Hookup subscription. Even though it’s shown up top in gigantic letters, I think it could be easy to miss if you weren’t aware that one of their subscriptions is called The Hookup and aren’t amazing about reading fine print; it might seem like that’s just catchy copy presenting your coffee result. Note that the only way to change your subscription choice is to go back and change your quiz answers (which is what I did when I didn’t like my original coffee pick).
Sealing the Deal
When you’re happy with your coffee and subscription results, hit that red “Subscribe” button, and you’ll be taken to a page where you can choose your grind and subscription cadence. I went with the default two weeks. (I would later be surprised at how quickly that time passes!) You can always go back into your account and “snooze” deliveries if the cadence is too rapid.
This page calls attention to a few perks of The Hookup subscription: free shipping (yay!) and Trade‘s commitment to setting you up with a coffee you love. This isn’t entirely clear here, but The Hookup subscribers also get 15% off of every bag, not just the first one.
Trade gives you the option to move communication over to text. I think it was clever of them to design this opt-in option with an old school robot. Imagine this cute little dude texting you!
Boom, order placed. I appreciated how this confirmation page reminded me that my coffee would be roasted before it was shipped and that shipping will take 2-5 days.
My First Trade Delivery
I received an email right away confirming my order. I also received an email notifying me when the roaster was roasting my beans. I got my “Your Coffee Is Roasting” email about two and a half hours after my confirmation email came in, though the Trade site mentions that all the roasters make their own schedules and many don’t roast on weekends. I might have just been lucky enough to get a coffee style that could be roasted more quickly. They do guarantee, however, that the roasters will ship your order within 24 hours of roasting it.
I was happy with the coffee but cancelling was such a pain. I cancelled, got the confirmation email from the company it was cancelled, and then weeks later got an email saying I had an order coming. I had issues before where it seemed like their settings and setting your schedule was buggy. It was part of why I cancelled, couldn’t trust it to scale back the schedule when I had too much coffee.
nice
Big time coffee snob here since I drink it black. I have to check this out. Thanks for the awesome review. The only downside I see is you have to order every 21 days. I would rather it be 30 days.