Costco's Food Court Has Frappes For Half The Cost Of Starbucks — But Are They As Good?

It's hard not to love a Starbucks Frappuccino. This blended, sweet, caffeinated treat comes in a variety of flavors from the coffee giant, and you'll frequently find new additions to the menu to fit seasonal flavors. Unfortunately, like most drinks at Starbucks, a Frappuccino is pretty pricey. If you find yourself ordering one of these sweet treats on the daily, you'll need at least a triple-digit coffee budget each month. With such a high price, it's natural to want something a little less expensive.

Like many Costco shoppers, my family and I frequently visit the conveniently placed food court at our local warehouse. On more than one occasion, especially on days where I need a little extra pick-me-up for the shopping trip, I have ordered one of the Cold Brew Mocha Freezes. It may not pair great with a hot dog, but for a discount warehouse coffee beverage, you really can't beat it. Still, how does Costco's frappe compare with a Starbucks Frappuccino? I wondered if it might even be better. One evening, I pitted a Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino and Costco Cold Brew Mocha Freeze against one another to determine which is the best frosty caffeinated beverage.

When I first started visiting Starbucks, the Mocha Frappuccino was one of the very first drinks I ordered. It was a great starting place because the drink is billed as basically a chocolate coffee milkshake. I've had my fair share of mochas since then (including the ones my husband makes at home with fresh mocha sauce) and found the mocha taste from this Frappuccino closer to cheap chocolate than anything else. It didn't have that deep, slightly bitter cocoa flavor you get from something like a Ghirardelli or Lindt chocolate. Don't get me wrong; it was enjoyable, and if I didn't have anything to compare it to, I'd probably say that it was pretty delicious. Still, there are better mochas out there. I should note that most Starbucks Mocha Frappuccinos don't come with a drizzle of mocha syrup on top, but my barista went a little overboard and decided to add some to the whipped cream topper. Still, it didn't really impact the flavor and stayed separate from my sipping.

As for texture, Frappuccinos have always struggled with separation, an issue I remember well as a former Starbucks barista. Like any other Frappuccino, this one wasn't immune to this issue, and I noticed it right away. Since the recipe calls for baristas to mix ice, Starbucks' Frappuccino roast, and several ingredients in a blender, it comes out frozen, but with plenty of ice to melt. The texture was similar to that of a smoothie, but still a little icier than I would have liked. So, when it started to separate, I ended up with a drink that tasted and felt more liquefied.

Like Starbucks, the Costco café offers a frozen chocolate coffee drink that feels like a direct comparison to a Mocha Frappuccino. Costco calls its drink a Cold Brew Mocha Freeze. This frozen offering had a frosted coffee base with swirled mocha sauce around the inside of the cup. The drink had an extremely sweet, chocolatey flavor that tasted somewhere between dark and milk chocolate, with only a small amount of coffee taste (and very smooth at that).

Texture-wise, I found it was closer to that of a slush or milkshake than a blended smoothie. It sipped easily through the provided straw, and though it was clearly melting as it was sitting at my table, I found it wasn't losing any of its texture or becoming runny. As I kept sipping, I was trying to figure out what it reminded me of. Then, it dawned on me: This drink tasted very similar to the type of blended drink, mudslide-style treat you might get on a cruise ship. Since the coffee taste was so minimal, it felt much more like dessert than something meant to wake me up.

Yes. The Costco Cold Brew Mocha Freeze is as good, if not better, than a Mocha Frappuccino. Obviously, this will depend on your preferences for chocolate and coffee flavor, but I found the Costco frozen coffee was much more enjoyable to drink than its counterpart from Starbucks.

Perhaps the best part about the Cold Brew Mocha Freeze was that it didn't have the same separation issues as the Starbucks drink did. The Frappuccino separation just makes for drinks that wildly shift in texture from the moment you take your first sip to the last few drinks of the drink. Now, there was certainly some melting in the Costco coffee, but it wasn't nearly as bad as what I experienced from the Frappuccino. This, in addition to the actual taste of the drink, makes Costco's Cold Brew Mocha Freeze the easy winner for me. Plus, you get an incredible bang for your buck in the caffeine department.

To repeat my tasting, you'll need a Starbucks and a Costco close by. You'll also need to have a Costco membership handy. If you don't happen to be a member, perhaps you can convince a friend to let you in as a guest to enjoy the café. Unfortunately, unlike Sam's Club, non-Costco members are not allowed access to the food court without a membership-toting friend. You'll find Costco's food court and its menu lineup toward the front of the warehouse, often just beyond the checkout lanes. There, you can either order in person at the counter or opt for the screen ordering experience.

To purchase the Frappuccino, you'll head to your closest Starbucks. You can order in person at the checkout counter or through the drive-thru. If you'd prefer to avoid both, you can order through the app and have your Frappuccino ready and waiting at the counter when you arrive. Take caution when ordering your Frappuccino ahead of time, however. You don't want it waiting too long and risking substantial drink separation.

Perhaps the biggest difference between Starbucks Frappuccino and Costco's frozen coffee was the price. At Starbucks, you can order a tall, grande, or venti size in 12, 16, or 24 ounces, respectively. Prices definitely vary between Starbucks locations, but at the one I ordered for this tasting, a tall Mocha Frappuccino would be $5.95. The grande I purchased was $6.25, and a venti would have been 50 cents more at $6.75.

Costco's mocha freeze, on the other hand, only came in a 16-ounce size. Although you don't have the option to go smaller or larger, the price is much lower at $2.99. This is the same price you would pay for Costco food court's strawberry banana fruit smoothie if you're feeling like something a little bit more fruity.

These two drinks are dramatically different nutritionally. A grande Mocha Frappuccino has 370 calories, while Costco's 16-ounce Cold Brew Mocha Freeze delivers significantly more at 580 calories, even though Starbucks tops its drink with whipped cream. Starbucks takes the lead with fats at 15 grams, and Costco keeps its fat content to 8 grams. In both carbohydrates and sugar, though, Costco packs on the grams. Starbucks' Mocha Frappuccino has 54 grams of carbohydrates and 51 grams of sugar, while Costco's offering has 116 grams of carbohydrates and 111 grams of sugar.

Perhaps the most interesting nutritional discrepancy between the two drinks is caffeine content. Starbucks grande Mocha Frappuccino has approximately 100 milligrams of caffeine. Costco, on the other hand, does not openly advertise how much caffeine is in its mocha freeze. Though there was nutritional information listed beside the food court retrieval counter, the caffeine content wasn't included. In fact, I had to reach out to customer service to find out the exact number. Even the customer service agent struggled to find the information. In the end, they determined that Costco's frozen mocha coffee has 340 milligrams to 353 milligrams of caffeine per serving. That's more caffeine than the most popular energy drinks, like Bang and Monster's Killer Brew.

Since cold brew has more caffeine than regular iced coffee, and Costco uses a cold brew base for its drink, perhaps it's a little less surprising. This number is strikingly large, and I wouldn't have believed it myself if the information hadn't come straight from Costco.

To understand how Costco's frozen coffee drink compared to a Starbucks one, I tasted them one right after another. First, I stopped by the closest Starbucks to my Costco, picked up a grande Mocha Frappuccino, and headed to Costco for dinner. During my taste test, I noted such important factors as taste and texture. I determined that the Costco frozen coffee would be as good as a Starbucks one if the flavor were at least as enjoyable as a Frappuccino's and if the texture could fend off the dreaded Frappuccino melt. Ideally, I was looking for a coffee drink that was sweet, without being too much, and one that had a smooth texture.