Starbucks Vs Dunkin': Which Coffee Chain Actually Uses More Sugar?

Most of us need our daily caffeine hit, but it's tough when sugar gets in the way of your morning cup from Starbucks or Dunkin'. While your standard coffee is sugar-free, chains thrive on selling tons of sugar-sweetened beverages, from flavored lattes to massive iced blended coffees. Americans already consume far too much sugar, with 35% of overall consumption coming from soda, fruit drinks, coffee, and tea, according to the American Heart Association. However, even if you wish to cut down on your sugar intake, switching your coffee provider is not an easy choice, as both Dunkin' and Starbucks have lots of sugar in their drinks — and the difference between them isn't that huge.

For comparison, we picked out a handful of similar drinks at each chain. It should be noted that Dunkin's sizes are generally larger than Starbucks'. So, for iced drinks, we compared Dunkin's small to Starbucks Grande (which are both 16 ounces), and for hot drinks, we compared Dunkin's large to Starbuck's Venti, which are 20 ounces and the only identically sized options for hot drinks. Most hot drinks at both chains don't have added sugar standard unless they are flavored, so we started with a vanilla latte.

At Dunkin' the large vanilla latte contains 42 grams of added sugar, while at Starbucks the Venti contains 44 grams. That's quite close — and still more than 80% of the recommended maximum of added sugar per day in either drink, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. For another hot comparison, we checked both chains' hot chocolate offerings. In this case Dunkin' was clearly higher with 55 grams of total sugar, while Starbucks' offered 46 grams.

The cold options at both chains were more likely to contain added sugar, so there were more points of comparison here. We used iced caramel macchiatos with whole milk as the basis for flavored espresso drinks, where Starbucks features more sugar (34 grams) compared to Dunkin' (31 grams). However Starbucks adds vanilla syrup (at five grams per pump) to the caramel macchiato by default, heightening the sugar content. If you took away that extra sweetener, the levels would be about the same.

When it comes to blended drinks, Dunkin' has way more. Its mocha blended coffee contains 86 grams of sugar for a small, while Starbucks' mocha Frappuccino features "only" 51, even with the whipped cream. For non-coffee options, however, Starbucks contains slightly more sugar. Its iced matcha latte boasts 25 grams of sugar, and the Mango Dragonfruit Refresher has 19. For the same drinks at Dunkin', the totals were 22 and 18 grams of sugar respectively.

Overall, both chains were quite similar. However, when Dunkin' drinks contained more sugar, they tended to add much more. Dunkin' also has more high-sugar options on the menu in general, and larger sizes if you are just comparing the medium versus medium sizes directly. Of course, both infuse quite a bit of sugar into their drinks, so neither is really a great option. If you want to avoid sugar in your morning coffee, you are better off customizing your order at either chain to cut down on the syrup rather than choosing one over the other.