Choosing a cup size for your café
Rim diameter decides which lid fits — not capacity. A short guide to reading the numbers on a hot or cold cup.
Two numbers matter on every cup, and only one of them is the one people quote.
Capacity is what you pour. Rim is what the lid fits.
A cup's capacity — 8 oz, 12 oz, 16 oz — tells you how much goes in it. Its rim diameter tells you which lid closes it, and two cups of the same capacity can take different lids.
On our hot cups, an 8 oz single wall has an 80 mm rim while an 8 oz double wall has an 86 mm one. Order the lid by the rim, never by the ounces, and one lid then covers a whole range: our 8 / 12 / 16 oz hot cup lid fits every cup with an 86 mm rim.
Single wall, double wall, ripple
- Single wall is the plain cup. It is the thinnest and the most economical, and a hot drink wants a sleeve with it.
- Double wall holds an air gap between two layers, so it is comfortable to hold without a sleeve.
- Ripple has a fluted outer layer that does the same job with a texture that grips.
Cold drinks
Paper cold cups run 12, 16 and 22 oz with 80 mm and 89 mm rims. Clear PET cups are the choice where the drink is the display — layered coffee, fruit tea, anything with colour — and run to a 98.3 mm rim on the larger sizes.
Send us the drinks you serve and the sizes you pour, and we will tell you which cup and which lid go together.