The cheapest bubble tea in Singapore in 2026 is Mixue, where a brown sugar pearl milk tea runs about S$2.90 to S$3.50 and most of the menu sits between S$0.50 and S$5.60. But the sticker price is the wrong number to chase. A S$4.00 KOI medium and a S$5.00 KOI large look like a S$1 gap, yet the large gives you roughly 40 percent more drink, so the large is often cheaper per ml. The honest way to compare bubble tea is cost per millilitre, not cost per cup, and once you do that the value picture flips. Below are the current 2026 prices at the chains people actually queue at, ranked by price per ml. Then comes the part the menu boards hide: what a daily boba habit costs you over a year, and what that money is worth if you keep it instead.
If you want the lowest sticker price, Mixue wins outright. A brown sugar pearl milk tea is around S$2.90 to S$3.50, and almost nothing on the menu crosses S$5.60. Each A Cup is the next cheapest of the named-brand chains, with a plain milk tea at S$3.60. At the pricier end, KOI starts at S$4.00 for a medium milk tea, a classic pearl milk tea at the Cai Ca outlets that replaced Gong Cha is about S$4.60, and LiHO's brown sugar pearl drinks reach S$5.60.
Sticker price hides the trap, which is size. Singapore boba cups are usually around 500ml for a medium and 700ml for a large. When a chain charges S$4.00 for a 500ml medium and S$5.00 for a 700ml large, the large costs 0.71 cents per ml versus 0.80 cents per ml for the medium. You pay a dollar more and get a cheaper drink by volume. The cup that feels like a splurge is the better deal per sip.
So the real ranking depends on what you optimise for. Lowest total spend on any given visit: buy a Mixue medium. Lowest cost per ml of drink: buy a large at whichever chain you are already at, because the large almost always beats the medium per ml. The brand matters less than the size you pick and how often you go. Treat boba like any small recurring cost and the same discipline you would apply to a monthly budget decides whether it stays a treat or quietly becomes a S$1,000-a-year line item.
Prices below are from current 2026 Singapore menu listings for a standard milk tea or pearl milk tea, the closest thing each chain has to a like-for-like drink. Sizes and exact figures vary slightly by outlet, and toppings, brown sugar and cheese foam push the price up from here. Where a chain lists medium and large, both are shown.
Two things to flag before you read the table. Gong Cha exited Singapore in 2025 and closed all its outlets; a separate brand called Cai Ca, founded by the former chief of Gong Cha's Singapore franchisee, has since taken over six of those locations, and Gong Cha has signalled plans to return with new franchisees. So at a mall that used to have a Gong Cha you may now find Cai Ca, whose classic pearl milk tea is about S$4.60. And every figure here is the menu price; whether 9 percent GST is already baked in depends on the outlet, which the next section covers.
| Chain | Drink | Medium | Large |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mixue | Brown sugar pearl milk tea | ~S$2.90 to S$3.50 | Large drinks mostly under S$5 |
| Each A Cup | Milk tea | S$3.60 | Not listed separately |
| KOI | Milk tea | S$4.00 | S$5.00 |
| KOI | Brown sugar milk tea | S$4.60 | S$5.80 |
| Cai Ca (former Gong Cha outlets) | Classic pearl milk tea | ~S$4.60 | Higher |
| LiHO | Classic milk tea range | From ~S$4.80 | Higher |
| LiHO | Jasmine milk tea with brown sugar pearl | S$5.60 | Higher |
Below the named mall chains sits a cheaper layer that the price guides often skip. Mixue anchors it, with drinks from around S$3 and an ice cream cone from about S$1.30. Each A Cup runs S$2 promotions on selected drinks at some heartland outlets, well under its S$3.60 standard milk tea. Smaller heartland and kiosk brands push lower still, with menus that start nearer S$1.30 to S$2.50. If your only goal is the lowest possible spend, this is where the cheapest cup in Singapore actually lives, not at the chains everyone names first.
The fair question is whether you are trading away taste. The honest answer is sometimes, and not always by much. When reviewers have put a cheap heartland milk tea against a pricier branded one, the cheap cup often came back as drinkable and decent rather than bad, with the gap showing up in tea fragrance and how it holds up after the ice melts rather than in being undrinkable. Premium chains do tend to use better tea leaves and fresher milk, which is part of what you pay for. But the jump from a S$2 cup to a S$5 cup is not a clean threefold jump in quality, and on a plain milk tea the difference narrows.
So the value move is not blanket cheap. It is matching the cup to the occasion: a Mixue or heartland cup as the everyday default, a premium chain when you actually want the better drink, and the awareness that paying triple does not get you triple. Run that split and your average cup drops without your enjoyment dropping with it, which is exactly the kind of small swap that keeps lifestyle inflation from creeping into your daily spending.
This is the single most useful thing to understand about boba pricing, and the chains rely on you not doing the maths. The jump from medium to large is almost always smaller in percentage terms than the jump in volume you get, so the large is cheaper per millilitre even though it costs more in total.
Take KOI milk tea as the clean example. The medium is S$4.00 for about 500ml, which is 0.80 cents per ml. The large is S$5.00 for about 700ml, which is 0.71 cents per ml. You pay 25 percent more money for 40 percent more drink, so each sip is about 11 percent cheaper. The same pattern holds at almost every chain because the cup and lid cost roughly the same regardless of size, so the upsize is mostly tea, milk and ice, which are cheap.
The practical rule: if you genuinely want a big drink, the large is the value buy and you should ignore the higher sticker price. If you only want a small drink, do not upsize just because it is cheaper per ml, because the cheapest drink of all is the one you do not finish or did not need. Per-ml value only helps you if you actually drink the volume.
Price per ml only tells the truth if you measure the actual drink, and the printed cup size is not it. When a finance team poured medium milk teas from the big chains into beakers, ice and foam removed, the same nominal medium held very different amounts of liquid: a Gong Cha medium came out around 482ml, a KOI around 471ml, a LiHO around 447ml and a HeyTea around 438ml. Same advertised size, almost 45ml of swing, which is roughly a 10 percent difference in what you actually drink for similar money.
Two things eat your volume. The first is ice. A cup filled to the brim with crushed ice looks full but is mostly frozen water that melts down to far less drink, which is why an iced cup at full ice gives you less tea than the cup suggests. Asking for less ice, where the chain allows it, gives you more liquid for the same price, though it also dilutes slower so the drink can taste stronger. The second is foam and toppings: cheese foam, a thick layer of pearls or grass jelly all sit in the cup in place of liquid, so a loaded drink that cost more can hold less tea than a plain one.
The practical read for value: a chain that quietly pours a fuller cup is cheaper per ml than its sticker price implies, and a chain that leans on ice and foam is dearer than it looks. You will not carry a beaker to the counter, so the usable rule is order less ice on a plain drink when you want maximum liquid per dollar, and treat heavy foam and topping cups as a taste choice rather than a value one. This is the same reason opportunity cost matters with any small buy: the number on the board is not always the thing you are paying for.
| Chain | Drink tested | Measured liquid | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gong Cha (pre-exit) | Earl Grey milk tea | ~482ml | Fullest pour of the five |
| KOI | Hazelnut milk tea | ~471ml | Near the top |
| PlayMade | Earl Grey milk tea | ~484ml | Generous pour |
| LiHO | Earl Grey milk tea | ~447ml | Below the pack |
| HeyTea | Bobo milk tea | ~438ml | Smallest measured volume |
The menu price is not always the final price, and two things move it. The first is GST, which has been 9 percent since 1 January 2024 and was unchanged at Budget 2026. A small bubble tea kiosk run by an operator below the S$1 million annual turnover threshold is not required to be GST-registered and so may not charge GST, in which case the wall price is what you pay. A GST-registered chain adds 9 percent, which on a S$5.00 large is another 45 cents. Most takeaway kiosks fold GST into the displayed price, but it is worth knowing the price you see is doing more work at one outlet than another.
The bigger leak is toppings and upgrades. Pearls, grass jelly, cheese foam, brown sugar and oat milk each add roughly S$0.50 to S$1.50, and they stack. A S$4.00 KOI milk tea ordered with pearls, brown sugar and an upsize quietly becomes a S$6-plus drink, which is a 50 percent markup over the number that drew you in. The base milk tea is the value buy; the customisations are where chains make their margin.
If you order the same loaded drink every day, that markup compounds. A plain S$3.60 milk tea versus a S$6.00 loaded one is S$2.40 a cup, which is S$876 a year on a daily habit. That gap alone is most of an emergency-fund top-up or a year of a cheap high-yield savings account earning quietly in the background. None of this means never get toppings. It means know that the toppings, not the tea, are what make boba an expensive habit.
Here is the part the price comparison exists to set up. One cup looks harmless. The frequency is what does the damage. Run the annual numbers and a boba habit becomes a real, visible line in your spending.
A cheap Mixue habit at S$3.00 a cup, three times a week, is about S$468 a year. A mall-chain habit at S$5.00 a cup, five times a week, is about S$1,300 a year. A loaded daily drink at S$6.00 is roughly S$2,190 a year. These are not extreme scenarios; plenty of people in Singapore drink bubble tea several times a week without thinking of it as a budget item at all.
The point is not to quit. It is to see the number, then decide on purpose. If you would happily pay S$1,300 a year for the drink you love, that is a clear choice and no one should guilt you out of it. If you would rather have most of that money compounding, switching from a daily S$5.00 loaded cup to two plain S$3.50 cups a week frees up well over S$1,000 a year (a daily S$5.00 cup is about S$1,825 a year; two S$3.50 cups a week is about S$364). Drop even S$1,000 a year into a low-cost fund and you can see what it becomes with a compound interest calculator: over ten years at a 5 percent annual return, that is more than S$13,000.
| Habit | Price per cup | Frequency | Cost per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mixue, light | S$3.00 | 3x a week | ~S$468 |
| Each A Cup, regular | S$3.60 | 4x a week | ~S$749 |
| Mall chain, regular | S$5.00 | 5x a week | ~S$1,300 |
| Loaded drink, daily | S$6.00 | 7x a week | ~S$2,190 |
Bubble tea has not stayed still. Over the past five years, the price of a standard medium pearl milk tea across several top Singapore brands has risen by more than S$1. That is a meaningful jump on a sub-S$5 product, and it is worth knowing why so you can judge whether your favourite chain's next price hike is fair.
Operators say about 80 percent of a store's costs come from raw ingredients, storage, delivery, rent and labour, all of which have climbed. Many chains also moved upmarket on ingredients, swapping cheap creamers, sugary syrups and teabags for real tea leaves, fresh fruit and sugar alternatives, partly to chase health-conscious customers and partly to justify premium positioning. Rent on prime mall and MRT-station units, self-service kiosks and constant new-product launches all add cost too. The GST step-ups to 8 percent in 2023 and 9 percent in 2024 sit on top of all of that.
For your wallet the takeaway is simple. The base drink rising past S$5 at the premium chains is exactly why the per-ml habit of buying the large, skipping unnecessary toppings, and rotating in cheaper chains like Mixue or Each A Cup matters more each year. The drink is not getting cheaper, so the savings have to come from how you buy it.
Bubble tea is sugar-heavy by default, and in Singapore that is now labelled for you. Since 30 December 2023, freshly prepared drinks including bubble tea fall under Nutri-Grade, which scores a drink from A to D on free sugar and saturated fat per 100ml. Grade A is 1g or less of sugar per 100ml, Grade B is over 1g up to 5g, Grade C is over 5g up to 10g, and Grade D is over 10g. Saturated fat thresholds run alongside: A is 0.7g or less, B up to 1.2g, C up to 2.8g, and D above 2.8g per 100ml.
What this means in practice: outlets must display the Nutri-Grade mark next to any C or D drink on their physical and online menus, and toppings must declare their sugar content. Advertising drinks graded D is banned across media platforms. A default brown sugar pearl milk tea easily lands at C or D, so the grade you see on the menu is a fast signal of how much sugar you are buying. Dialling the sugar level down to 30 or 50 percent often moves a drink to a better grade and is free.
Frame the health side as a deferred cost, not a lecture. A daily full-sugar boba is real sugar and real calories, and the conditions that come from years of it, the ones that raise blood pressure and blood sugar, are exactly the kind of expense no amount of buying the large cup offsets. Reducing sugar level, going easy on the daily frequency and treating bubble tea as a few-times-a-week pleasure is the cheap insurance, the same way you would manage any small spend that scales quietly with your income.
The cheapest cup is the one you do not buy, but few people want that answer. The realistic one is to keep the habit and shave the price, and there are three levers that do not depend on which chain you pick.
Loyalty and app stamps come first. Most major chains run a points or stamp card in their own app, where a set number of purchases earns a free or discounted drink, so a habit you already have quietly funds the occasional free one. The trap is buying more, or buying pricier, just to hit a stamp. The saving is only real if you would have bought the cup anyway. Deal platforms are the second lever: aggregators such as ChopeDeals list bundle and discounted bubble tea vouchers, and 1-for-1 promotions turn a S$5 cup into S$2.50 a head when you split it with someone. If you drink boba in pairs, a 1-for-1 deal is usually a bigger saving than switching chains, the same way splitting a 1-for-1 buffet beats hunting for the cheapest single seat.
The third lever is making it at home, which sounds like effort until you see the gap. A kiosk cup is mostly tea, milk, sugar and pearls, and bought in bulk those cost a fraction of S$5 per serving once you ignore the rent, labour and cup the chain is charging you for. Cooked tapioca pearls, a pot of brewed tea and your own milk make a cup for well under the price of any chain, and you control the sugar level for free. It will not match a premium chain on convenience or polish, but for a daily drinker the annual gap is large. Treat the home version as the weekday default and the chain cup as the treat, and the maths shifts hard in your favour, which is the whole point of watching a small recurring cost the way you would watch a monthly budget.
| Lever | How it works | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Chain app stamps | Points or stamps on purchases you already make earn a free or cheaper cup | Do not buy extra cups just to hit a stamp |
| 1-for-1 and deal vouchers | Bundles and 1-for-1 promos roughly halve the per-head price when shared | Only a saving on a drink you would have bought |
| Make it at home | Bulk tea, milk and pearls cost a fraction of a chain cup per serving | Convenience and consistency drop; sugar control is the upside |
Pull it into a routine you can run at the counter.
First, decide the size by volume, not by sticker price: if you want a big drink, the large is cheaper per ml at almost every chain, so buy it; if you want a small drink, take the medium and do not upsize. Second, anchor on the base drink and add toppings deliberately, since pearls, cheese foam and brown sugar are where a S$4 cup becomes a S$6 cup. Third, rotate in the cheap chains, because a Mixue or Each A Cup run on most days and a premium chain as the occasional treat keeps your average cup well under S$4. Fourth, set the sugar level low, which costs nothing, often improves the Nutri-Grade and cuts the calories. Fifth, count the frequency, not the cup, because the annual total is what decides whether boba is a harmless treat or a four-figure line in your budget.
Mixue is the cheapest of the well-known chains. A brown sugar pearl milk tea runs about S$2.90 to S$3.50 and most of the menu sits between S$0.50 and S$5.60, with ice cream cones from around S$1.30 and large drinks mostly under S$5. Among named-brand alternatives, Each A Cup is next cheapest with a plain milk tea at S$3.60, undercutting mall chains like KOI and LiHO by roughly a dollar.
A standard milk tea or pearl milk tea ranges from about S$2.90 at Mixue to S$5.60 or more at premium chains in 2026. KOI milk tea is S$4.00 medium and S$5.00 large, the classic pearl milk tea at the Cai Ca outlets that took over former Gong Cha sites is around S$4.60, and LiHO drinks run from roughly S$4.80 up to S$14.90 for premium editions. Toppings, brown sugar and cheese foam add S$0.50 to S$1.50 each on top, so a loaded cup easily passes S$6.
The large is almost always cheaper per millilitre, even though it costs more in total. A KOI medium is S$4.00 for about 500ml, or 0.80 cents per ml, while the large is S$5.00 for about 700ml, or 0.71 cents per ml. You pay 25 percent more for 40 percent more drink. Buy the large only if you will actually finish it, since per-ml savings disappear if you waste the extra volume.
A S$3.00 Mixue cup three times a week is about S$468 a year. A S$5.00 mall-chain cup five times a week is about S$1,300 a year. A S$6.00 loaded drink every day is roughly S$2,190 a year. Cutting from a daily loaded cup to two plain cups a week frees up well over S$1,000 a year; even S$1,000 of that, invested at a 5 percent annual return, can grow to over S$13,000 in a decade.
It depends on the outlet. Singapore GST has been 9 percent since 1 January 2024, unchanged at Budget 2026. A small kiosk run by an operator below the S$1 million annual turnover threshold is not required to register for GST and may not charge it, so the wall price is final. GST-registered chains add 9 percent, which on a S$5.00 drink is about 45 cents, though most takeaway kiosks fold GST into the displayed price.
A standard medium pearl milk tea across several top brands has risen more than S$1 over the past five years. Operators say about 80 percent of a store's costs are ingredients, storage, delivery, rent and labour, all of which have climbed. Many chains also upgraded to real tea leaves and fresh fruit over cheaper creamers and syrups, and pay premium rent on mall and MRT units. The GST rise to 8 percent in 2023 and 9 percent in 2024 added to the base.
Since 30 December 2023, freshly prepared drinks including bubble tea carry a Nutri-Grade score from A to D based on free sugar and saturated fat per 100ml. Grade A is 1g or less of sugar per 100ml, B is up to 5g, C is up to 10g, and D is above 10g. Outlets must show the grade for C and D drinks on menus, and advertising D-grade drinks is banned. A default brown sugar pearl milk tea usually lands at C or D; lowering the sugar level often improves the grade for free.
Usually a little, not a lot. Premium chains tend to use better tea leaves and fresher milk, which is part of what you pay for, and in reviews the difference shows up mainly in tea fragrance and how the drink holds up after the ice melts rather than in cheap cups being undrinkable. A S$2 to S$3 cup from Mixue or a heartland kiosk is generally drinkable and decent. The jump from S$2 to S$5 is not a threefold jump in quality, especially on a plain milk tea, so the value move is matching the cup to the occasion rather than always buying cheap or always buying premium.
The sub-S$2 cup lives below the named mall chains, at smaller heartland and kiosk brands whose menus start nearer S$1.30 to S$2.50, plus Each A Cup, which runs S$2 promotions on selected drinks at some outlets. Mixue anchors the budget tier with drinks from around S$3 and an ice cream cone from about S$1.30. If your only goal is the lowest possible spend, the cheapest cup is at these smaller brands, not at KOI, LiHO or the other chains people name first.
Three levers that do not depend on which chain you pick. First, use the chain's own app stamps or points, but only on cups you would have bought anyway. Second, share 1-for-1 and voucher deals from platforms like ChopeDeals, which roughly halves the per-head price and usually beats switching brands. Third, make it at home, where bulk tea, milk and pearls cost a fraction of a chain cup per serving once you strip out rent and labour. Use the home version as the weekday default and a chain cup as the treat, and count the yearly total, not the single cup.
This is general financial information for Singapore, not personal financial advice. Figures change — verify current rates against the official sources above before acting. See our full disclaimer.