At an average of $5.17, buying a small flat white will cost you more this month in some Australian cafes.
In April, the average small flat white cost $5.01. Five months later, before a controversial rule from the Reserve Bank went into effect, the average in September was $5.11.
While coffee prices have continued to rise over the last six months, the ban on businesses charging customers for card payments has many wondering whether the cost will be absorbed or added to the menu .
One analysis found one in five cafes increased their prices in October, though the changes were not necessarily driven by the card surcharge ban alone.
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That data comes from self-confessed coffee, data and automation nerd Chris Drake, the creator of Small Flat White, a website that has become an unofficial tracker of coffee prices across Australia
"I'm a real weird coffee person," he told SBS.
"I buy a pack of beans, and I'll use it at home and go to the cafe and see what it's meant to taste like, and I track every single piece of like coffee I have."
Drake started calling around coffee shops to find out which beans they offered, before realising it was a chance to ask other things too. He now tracks prices at thousands of cafes.
It's become the Small Flat White Price Index.
The tracker only records how much prices change, not the factors that contribute to the rise or fall. But Drake said cafe owners tell him, anecdotally, that they are delaying raising prices for as long as possible and then planning to raise prices once.
Some 70 per cent of cafes charge a round price for their coffee. So, when raising their price, it is often changed to the next 50c increment or whole dollar.
An increase of 50 cents is typically about 10 per cent of the coffee price.
"But that's not because they're necessarily putting it up because of the surcharge; it's all the other costs too, and then they're putting it up 50 cents," he said.
"Cafe owners tell us their costs keep rising. They've got wages, super, rent, milk, beans, freight, even the cost of coffee cups."
Nearly 40 per cent of increases were 50 cents, with 20 cents the next most popular at 13 per cent. Nine per cent of increases were of 30 cents or a dollar.
ACT had the largest increase over the last six months at 4.2 per cent, closely followed by Queensland, NSW and Victoria with a 4 per cent increase since April.
Prices in South Australia have increased by 3 per cent. For Tasmania and Western Australia, it's only increased by 2.3 and 2.1, respectively.
Small Flat White also breaks down coffee prices by suburb.
The suburbs currently offering the cheapest prices are in Sydney's south-west, with the average in Canterbury at $4.67 and Botany at $4.68.
The most expensive cups are being sold in north Queensland and South Australia's Yorke Peninsula. Prices tended to be higher in rural locations, with transportation costs also becoming more expensive.
Analysis from online payment company Tyro found nearly 90 per cent of businesses that previously charged card surcharges haven't raised their prices.
Twelve per cent of businesses previously using surcharges raised their prices during October, as did 2.7 per cent of businesses that never surcharged.
As for how much their prices went up, more than half of the increases were by more than three times the amount previously surcharged.
