Siip Coffee vs Trade Coffee

Side-by-Side Comparison

The Key Difference: Static vs. Improving Matching

This is the most important difference between Siip and Trade, and it affects your experience every single month.

Trade's approach: You take a 6-question quiz. Trade recommends coffees based on your answers. You can rate coffees you receive, and Trade says their "in-house experts will use this information to fine-tune all future deliveries." This is a human-mediated process, a team reviews your feedback and manually selects your next coffee. The matching quality stays roughly the same over time. Some months you'll get a coffee you love. Some months you'll get one that isn't really your thing. Your 10th delivery isn't necessarily better matched than your 3rd.

Siip's approach: You take the same kind of taste quiz to start. But then a rating-based algorithm takes over. Every coffee you rate, whether from your subscription, a café, a grocery store, or a bag you scanned while traveling, feeds the algorithm new data about your preferences. And it updates instantly. Rate a coffee at 9am, and your match scores at 9:01am already reflect what the system learned. Each month, the algorithm searches across the full database and finds coffees that score higher against your updated taste profile. Your 4th delivery is measurably better matched than your 1st. Your 8th is better than your 4th. The subscription genuinely improves.

The practical difference: with Trade, you accept that some months will be hits and some will be misses. With Siip, the misses get rarer every month.

Where Trade Wins

Press coverage and brand recognition. Trade has been featured in Wirecutter, Vogue, GQ, CNN, Bon Appétit, and more. It's one of the most well-known coffee subscriptions in the US.

First Bag Guarantee. Don't like your first coffee? Trade replaces it for free. A nice low-risk entry point.

Larger roaster network today. Trade currently works with 55 US roasters compared to Siip's 20 founding roasters (though Siip is onboarding 100+ additional roasters in 2026).

Where Siip Wins

Matching that improves every month. The fundamental product difference. Siip's algorithm gets smarter with every rating, your subscription is a different, better experience in month 6 than it was in month 1. Trade's matching stays roughly constant.

Browse, buy, and swap right in the app. Siip is not a black box. You can browse the full catalog sorted by your personal match scores, buy any coffee you want to try directly in the app, and preview what's coming next in your subscription and swap it for something else in a tap. You get algorithm-driven recommendations AND full control.

Instant learning. Siip's algorithm updates in real time. Trade routes feedback through human curators who manually adjust your next pick on a review cycle.

Learns from your entire coffee life. Rate a pour-over at a café. Scan a bag you found at a farmer's market. Log an espresso from a roaster you visited on vacation. Every rating from any source makes your Siip subscription better. Trade can only learn from coffees within its own 500-coffee catalog.

Free worldwide app. Siip's app indexes 30,000+ coffees and lets you scan any bag, anywhere, in any language. Trade has no mobile app, it's website-only.

Match % on every coffee. Before a coffee ships (or before you buy one at a café), you can see exactly how well it matches your taste profile. Trade doesn't offer predictive matching.

Farm-level transparency. Siip shows the specific farm, producer, region, altitude, variety, and processing method. Trade generally shows country, roast level, and tasting notes.

Standard bag sizes. Siip ships 8–12oz bags depending on the roaster. The majority of Trade's bags are 310g (~11oz), which is smaller than the standard 12oz bag most specialty roasters offer.

Two bags per delivery. Siip sends 2 bags/month, giving you more variety and more data for the algorithm to learn from. Trade sends 1 bag at a time.

Cup of Excellence partnership. Siip is an official partner of Cup of Excellence, the Michelin stars of coffee. Award-winning lots are being added to the premium tier.

Pricing Comparison

Siip Coffee (first 2 months with 20% launch discount):

• Curious: $14.40/bag (8–12oz, normally $18) , 2 bags/month = $28.80/month
• Signature: $19.20/bag (8–12oz, normally $24) , 2 bags/month = $38.40/month
• Reserve: $24/bag (8–12oz, normally $30) , 2 bags/month = $48/month
• Free shipping on all plans

Trade Coffee:

• From ~$15.75/bag (~11oz) , 1 bag per delivery
• Frequency adjustable (every 1-4 weeks)
• Up to 40% off first order
• Free shipping on select orders

Per-ounce comparison:

• Siip Curious (launch price): ~$1.20/oz
• Trade (at $15.75 for 11oz): ~$1.43/oz

Siip delivers standard-sized bags (8–12oz depending on the roaster) vs Trade's ~11oz bags.

Who Should Choose What

Choose Siip if:

• You want your subscription to get better each month, not just different
• You want an algorithm that learns from everything you drink, not just what it ships you
• You care about knowing exactly where your coffee comes from (farm-level detail)
• You want a free app to scan and discover coffees anywhere in the world
• You want match scores before you commit to a coffee
• You drink coffee at cafés and want that to improve your subscription too

Choose Trade if:

• You prefer a well-known brand with extensive press coverage
• You want a single bag at a time rather than two
• You prefer a website experience over a mobile app

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

• Trade Coffee FAQ and help center (trade-coffee.gorgias.help)
• Siip Coffee product pages (siip.coffee)
• Cup of Excellence (cupofexcellence.org)
• App Store and Google Play listings, February 2026