Nespresso Vertuo Plus

The Vertuo Plus is one of the most widely owned machines in this catalogue, and the reason is straightforward: it is inexpensive, it is simple, and it makes larger coffees than the espresso-focused Original Line does. At $180 it is priced to get you into the system, which owners are entirely clear-eyed about — the business model is a cheap machine and proprietary capsules, and the capsules are where the money is. Whether that is a problem depends on what you are comparing it with. Owners doing the arithmetic against café prices are unapologetic: at roughly a dollar a capsule against seven or eight dollars for a large drink with syrup and a tip, the machine pays for itself quickly and nobody waits in a queue. Against grinding your own beans, the calculation goes the other way entirely.

Several pieces of practical knowledge make ownership better and none of them are obvious. The first is a genuine usability quirk: after inserting a capsule and closing the top, you press the button and the machine brews once it reaches temperature — you do not need to wait and then press. Owners describe taking a while to work that out and finding it much more convenient afterwards. The second is buying strategy, and the community is well organised about it. Capsule prices rise periodically, so stocking up ahead of an announced increase is standard practice; there is essentially always a promotional code available, so ordering without one is leaving money behind; and free sample capsules are included with web orders but not with orders placed through the app, which is an easy thing to miss. On maintenance, a weekly clean is the norm for a capsule-a-day household. One neat owner trick for keeping the used-capsule container tidy is folding a paper towel into the reservoir to absorb the liquid that inevitably drains from spent pods, which also helps if you live somewhere humid.

At $180 the Vertuo Plus makes sense if you want larger coffees with no effort and accept the capsule economics. The structural limitation is that Vertuo capsules are proprietary and controlled by a single supplier, so unlike the Original Line there is no meaningful third-party market to shop for cheaper pods — that is the difference that compounds over years of ownership. If you drink espresso, cortados or flat whites rather than mug-sized coffee, the Original Line machines produce a denser, more espresso-like shot and open up inexpensive compatible capsules, which is why so many owners who care about espresso migrate that way. Within the Vertuo range itself, the newer Vertuo Up is the machine owners upgrading from older models now point to. And if milk drinks are your main interest, no standard Vertuo machine has a steam wand — that requires a Creatista or a separate frother alongside.