Is the Coffee Machine 'Plus' Upgrade Worth 450 EUR?

Before you pay 450 EUR more for the “Plus” badge on a Siemens coffee machine, check what that money buys. The Siemens EQ900 Plus iAroma lists at 2,149 EUR against 1,699 EUR for the standard Siemens EQ900 iAroma, a 26.5 percent premium. Every spec that shapes daily use, the 31-drink menu, the 19 bar pump, the 2.3 L tank, the auto-frother, the 6 grind settings, the smart app, the footprint, is identical on both. The measured difference is a 35 gram bigger bean hopper (410 g against 375 g) and 0.6 kg more weight. That is the entire case for the extra 450 EUR.

Key takeaways:

• The Siemens EQ900 Plus iAroma (2,149 EUR) costs 450 EUR, 26.5 percent, more than the standard Siemens EQ900 iAroma (1,699 EUR) in our database.
• Every spec that changes daily use, drink menu, pump pressure, tank size, milk system, grind settings, cup height, power draw, smart app, and dimensions, is identical between the two machines.
• The only measured differences are bean hopper capacity (410 g against 375 g, up 9.3 percent) and weight (12.4 kg against 11.8 kg, up 5.1 percent).
• The 450 EUR premium alone is more than the price of our cheapest bean-to-cup machine, the Siemens EQ300 TF301E09 at 379 EUR.
• Across 12 bean-to-cup machines that publish both price and programmable-drink count, EUR per drink ranges from 25.72 EUR to 99.83 EUR, a 3.9 times spread with no clean relationship between price tier and value.

What does 450 EUR actually buy on the Siemens EQ900 Plus?

A bigger bean hopper and a heavier machine, and that is the complete list. Pump pressure, tank size, milk system, grind settings, cup height, power draw, smart app and footprint all match exactly. The bean hopper grows from 375 g to 410 g, roughly two to three extra espresso shots between refills, and the machine gains 0.6 kg, likely from the housing change that fits the larger hopper. Neither change touches how a drink tastes, how fast it pours, or how many drinks you can program.

If that refill convenience is worth 450 EUR to you, buy the Plus. If not, the standard EQ900 is the identical machine for 1,699 EUR.

Is there a cheaper way to spend that 450 EUR?

Yes. 450 EUR is more than the entire price of the Siemens EQ300 TF301E09, our cheapest full bean-to-cup machine at 379 EUR. The Plus badge alone costs more than a second, complete entry-level machine. That EQ300 only manages 5 programmable drinks against the EQ900’s 31, so it is not a like-for-like swap, but it reframes the number: you are not paying 450 EUR for a feature, you are paying more than the price of a whole separate coffee machine for 35 g of hopper capacity.

Does paying more reliably buy a deeper drink menu?

Not in any consistent way. Restricting the comparison to bean-to-cup machines that publish both a price and a programmable-drink count leaves 12 models in our database, and dividing price by drink count produces a EUR-per-drink figure that ranges nearly fourfold.

Model	Price (EUR)	Programmable drinks	EUR per drink
Philips Series 5500 EP5546/70	514.48	20	25.72
Siemens EQ600 iAroma TP601E09	799.00	22	36.32
Siemens EQ700 iAroma TP7X5BM7	1,249.00	28	44.61
DeLonghi Dinamica ECAM350.55.B	435.99	9	48.44
Siemens EQ6 plus s700 TE657M03DE	599.00	12	49.92
Siemens EQ900 iAroma TQ923E43	1,699.00	31	54.81
Siemens EQ500 integral TQ517D03	579.00	10	57.90
Jura E8 Dark Inox (EB)	1,027.00	17	60.41
Siemens EQ900 plus iAroma TQ923EZ3	2,149.00	31	69.32
Siemens EQ300 TF301E09	379.00	5	75.80
Bosch Serie 2 VeroCafe TIE20504	419.00	5	83.80
Siemens EQ500 iAroma TP551E07	599.00	6	99.83

The Philips Series 5500 leads the value ranking at 25.72 EUR per drink. The 1,027 EUR Jura E8 works out to 60.41 EUR per drink, worse value than the far cheaper 799 EUR Siemens EQ600 iAroma at 36.32 EUR per drink. A bigger price tag does not reliably buy a deeper menu, and the EQ900 Plus is the clearest case: its EUR-per-drink figure jumps from 54.81 to 69.32 for the identical 31-drink count, purely because the price rose 450 EUR while the menu did not move at all.

What about pod-capsule machines like Tassimo?

They are left out on purpose. All five Bosch Tassimo machines in our database, spanning 39.99 EUR to 74.99 EUR, report exactly 8 programmable drinks each. That number does not move with price because it is fixed by the pod system: Tassimo reads a barcode on each capsule and brews one of a set list of drink types, rather than offering a custom onboard menu the way a bean-to-cup machine does. Comparing a 31-drink bean-to-cup menu against a pod machine’s fixed 8 would compare two different kinds of feature under one field name, the same non-comparable-format trap our ovens coverage flagged before. This piece sticks to the 12 bean-to-cup machines where the metric means the same thing row to row.

When two machines cost exactly the same, what actually differs?

Price parity does not mean spec parity. The Siemens EQ500 iAroma and the Siemens EQ6 plus s700 both list at 599 EUR, yet the EQ500 offers 6 programmable drinks, a 15 bar pump and smart app control at 8.2 kg, while the EQ6 plus doubles the menu to 12 drinks and runs a 19 bar pump at 10.3 kg, with smart app availability not disclosed. Neither machine is simply worse: the EQ500 buys app connectivity and a lighter unit, the EQ6 plus buys menu depth and pump pressure, for the identical money. The EQ6 plus s700’s grind settings are also not disclosed, recorded as N/A rather than assumed absent. The price tag will not tell you which trade-off suits your routine, only the spec sheet will.

So is the Plus upgrade worth it?

Only if 35 g of extra bean capacity and 0.6 kg of extra weight are worth 450 EUR to you, because that is the entire, verified difference between the standard EQ900 and the EQ900 Plus. Before paying a premium on any machine in the coffee machines category, put both model numbers side by side in compare and look for a delta beyond the badge. The spec sheet usually settles it in under a minute, which is worth more than the name on the box.