There are a variety of manufacturers selling products that will allow you to make your own soda at home. They would have you believe that you can save a lot of money by buying their products to make your own soda rather than buying it in the store. But is this really true? I decided to do a little digging to determine just how much is costs using some of the more common soda making products on the market to see if the alleged savings are real. Which products allow you to create the least expensive carbonated beverage? I also wanted to know how versatile each product was. Do they allow you to only carbonate water or any liquid of your choice? How easy are they to use? Let's see how they stack up.

Sodastream

  • Sodastream sells a variety of soda makers that are counter-top appliances that allow you to carbonate water or allow you to add a line of soda syrups that they will sell to you. To carbonate the liquid, Sodastream sells proprietary CO₂ cartridge of different sizes that fit their varied product line. Your initial purchase of a CO₂ cartridge will set you back about double the cost of refills. After a quick search online I found that a 60L SodaStream cartridge costs $27.99 and a refill costs $14.99 at Target. While they also sell 130L cartridges and refills, we'll base our pricing on the refill cost of the more common 60L model.

Sodastream cost per liter?

$14.99 / 60 liters = $0.25 per liter
Carbonated water made with SodaStream products will cost you ~$0.25 cents per liter.

Mastrad Purefizz Soda Maker Set

  • The Mastrad Purefizz is the simple and portable way to make your favorite carbonated beverages. It works by having users put any liquid of their choice into their container, sealing it with a lid and then charging the container with CO₂ from an 8-gram CO₂ cartridge bulb. This product seems more versatile than the Sodastream's because you can carbonate any liquid of your choice. However, when looking at the cost per liter to make your own soda, the money adds up. I decided to think big and try to get the biggest savings. Looking online I found a 100 pack of 8 gram CO₂ cartridges was for $39.95 with free shipping and according to the Mastrad website each cartridge makes 0.75 liters of fizzy liquid.

Mastrad Purefizz cost per liter?

$39.95 / 100 pack = $0.40 per cartridge.
$0.40/0.75 liter = $0.53 per liter.
Carbonated liquid (of any sort) made with the Mastrad Purefill Soda Maker set will cost ~$0.53 per liter.

iSi Soda Siphon

  • The iSi Soda Siphon is a siphon design carbonator that makes 0.75 liters of liquid per charge. According to the iSi website it is advised that this product is only designed to carbonate water. Similar to the Mastrad Purefizz, the iSi Soda Siphon carbonates a single 0.75 liter container with 8-gram CO₂ cartidge bulbs. Given that this is the same size cartridge found for the Mastrid Purefill, the math will be the same with the 100 pack of 8 gram CO₂ cartridges that I found for $39.95.

iSi Soda Siphon cost per liter?

$39.95 / 100 pack = $0.40 per cartridge.
$0.40/0.75 liter = $0.53 per liter.
Carbonated water made with the iSi Soda Siphon will cost ~$0.53 per liter.

The Best Whip Soda Plus

  • The Best Whip Soda Plus works very similarly to the Mastrad Purfill Soda Maker in that in allows users to fill their container with anything you drink and infuse it will carbonation using 8-gram CO₂ cartridges. Best Whip got my attention by advertising a 24 pack of cartridges for $8.95 but when I dug a little deep I found that to get them delivered to my house would cost another $17 in shipping and handling bringing the total to around $26, more expensive ($1.08 each) than the Leland brand of chargers found in examples above. Amazon sells a 100 count box of soda chargers for $69.95 + $17.85 shipping bringing the total to $87.80 but even at that bulk rate it is still more expensive than the 100 pack from Leland. The Soda Plus does have some advantage over it's competitors. It claims to be able to carbonate 1.2 liters of liquid using a single cartridge, but given the facts that you are still infusing 8 grams of CO₂ per charge makes one wonder whether the carbonation will be as strong.

Best Whip Soda Plus cost per liter?

$39.95 / 100 pack = $0.40 per cartridge.
$0.40/1.2 liter = $0.33 per liter.
Carbonated liquid (of any sort) made with the Best Whip Soda Plus will cost ~$0.33 per liter.

The Soda Sparkle

  • The SodaSparkle works very similarly to the Mastrad Purfill Soda Maker and Best Whip Soda Plus, allowing users to fill their container (plastic) with anything you drink and infuse it will carbonation using 8-gram CO₂ cartridges. The CO₂ chargers sold by SodaSparkle will cost you a premium but when reviewing the product on Amazon a helpful user mentioned that "I use the readily available Leland Seltzer Chargers with mine. They are tiny bit short, so I wad up a piece of paper to make up the difference." Wadding up some paper to save some money seems like a good compromise and I want to bring you a real world price for using these products so once again we will go with the Leland charger price. The SodaSparkle claims to be able to carbonate 1.3 liters of any liquid using a single cartridge (you can also use an additional cartridge for extra carbonation) but, alongside the Best Whip Soda Plus, the same concern exists about whether 8 grams of CO₂ is enough to adequately carbonate 1.3 liters of liquid.

SodaSparkle cost per liter?

$39.95 / 100 pack = $0.40 per cartridge.
$0.40/1.3 liter = $0.31 per liter.
Carbonated liquid (of any sort) made with the SodaSparkle will cost ~$0.31 per liter.

The FiZZ-GiZ

  • The FiZZ-GiZ, a compact, portable banana shaped device uses a similar method of infusing CO₂ directly into a liquid of choice in a bottle and agitating it, but it does so in a unique way; The FiZ-GiZZ allows you to use any regular soda bottles (20 oz., 2 liter, etc.) from the grocery store. After filling your bottle with any liquid you choose you then screw on an included bottle cap with a 1-way valve on the bottle, place the FiZZ-GiZ up to the valve and press a button to insert the CO₂ . The FiZZ-GiZ uses 16-gram CO₂ cartridges rather than the 8-gram cartridges used by the other products that were reviewed. After some digging I found some Leland 16 gram cartridges online. There seems to be less 16-gram non-threaded cartridges on the market that 8-gram models and the price is a bit higher per gram. A 30 pack of cartridges will cost you $36.43 with free shipping. The FiZZ-GiZ will make approximately 2 liters of carbonated liquid per cartridge.

FiZZ-GiZ cost per liter?

$36.43 / 30 pack = $1.21 per cartridge.
$1.21/2.00 liter = $0.61 per liter.
Carbonated liquid (of any sort) made with the FiZZ-GiZ will cost ~$0.61 per liter.

The Soda Stick/Soda Rope

  • I am reviewing the Soda Stick and Soda Rope together because they are made from the same company (along with the FiZZ-GiZ) and infuse CO₂ the same way. They only differ in their form factors, the Soda Stick being a sleeker, smaller, more durable version of the Soda Rope. Both products use the same method of infusing soda and will cost the same per liter. These products are unique relative to other products in our review in that they use standard paintball CO₂ tanks for their source of carbonation. Similar to the FiZZ-GiZ, after filling your standard store bought bottle with any liquid you choose, you screw an included bottle cap with a 1-way valve on the bottle, turn the bottle upside down on the Soda Stick and press (or in the case of the Soda Rope inject soda using a nozzle with a lever) to insert the CO₂ . As mentioned above, these devices use paintball tanks rather than the 8 or 16 gram cartridges used by some of the other products that were reviewed. So what does it cost?
  • To determine cost per liter we need to calculate some numbers. Paintball tanks measure the amount of CO₂ in them using ounces, not grams.One ounce of CO₂ is roughly 28 grams. They come in a variety of sizes, but probably the most cost efficient size for our purposes of making soda would be to purchase a 20-ounce tank. At 28 grams per ounce, a 20-ounce paintball tank would contain about 580 grams of CO₂ and they cost about $5 to fill at your local sporting good store. Using the industry standard (and roughly what we have been calulation with the products above), we will assume it takes about 4-grams of CO₂ to carbonate 1-liter of liquid. With that in mind, let's crunch the numbers.

Soda Stick/Soda Rope cost per liter?

$5.00 = 580 grams of CO₂
580-grams CO₂/4 grams per liter = 145 liters of soda
145-liters / $5.00 = ~$0.04 per liter.
Carbonated liquid (of any sort) made with the Soda Rope or Soda Stick will cost ~$0.04 per liter.

Conclusion

The Soda Stick and Soda Rope will allow you to product the cheapest source of homemade soda. As you can tell from table below, producing soda with these products costs 80% less than if you went with the next closest competitor. A 2-liter bottle of soda using this device will cost you roughly 8 cents to carbonate. If you want to make the cheapest homemade soda out of your own ingredients using standard soda bottles, try a Soda Rope or Soda Stick to get the most bang for your buck. What have been your experiences with these products?