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It's a tough time for cost-savvy beverage fans. In March, changes to Starbucks' rewards program left customers fuming. Now, Panera is changing the rules to its popular Sip Club: The $14.99-per-month drinks program, once called the Unlimited Sip Club, is getting a lot more limited. As of August 19th, Sip Club can only redeem 30 drinks a month instead of redeeming one drink every two hours. Updated terms can be found on Panera's website.
Customers turned to Reddit to express their frustration. "Do you think Panera will reverse the new Sip Club change if they receive enough pushback?" one Redditor wrote in a post on the r/Panera subreddit. "No," replied another. "They only care about the money." That's probably true: Panera is a business, after all.
Other customers were more pragmatic. Some sippers pointed out that Panera likely used the Sip Club to entice customers into stores in hopes that they'd buy other items. The new, not-so-improved Sip Club could be a sign that the strategy isn't working as well as it used to. "In the beginning, I was already a longtime fairly regular Panera customer," wrote one Redditor. "As the food prices went up and the quality went down, I became less likely to buy food with my drinks."
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Changes to Panera's Sip Club are part of a larger brand strategy
Sip Club sippers are still getting a decent deal. Panera's website notes that the Sip Club pays for itself after four large drinks — which average $3.99 — and that customers can save over $100 per month if they redeem drinks daily. Other rules, like the included drinks, the one-drink-per-two-hours limit, and the price of $14.99 per month or $119.99 per year, will remain unchanged.
It's not the first time that the bakery brand has switched up its Sip Club or drinks menu, either. In 2022, two years after the program debuted, Panera expanded its Sip Club menu to include self-serve drinks like coffee and lemonade. In 2024, Sip Club customers complained after Panera removed its downright dangerous Charged Lemonades from the menu.
Still, the Sip Club shift is another sign of Panera's downfall. Sales have been flagging in recent years: In November 2025, the bakery brand announced a turnaround strategy in hopes of raising sales to $7 billion by 2028. A few months later, the chain began testing MyPanera, a points-based rewards program in select stores. Apparently, the changes to the Sip Club are part of the brand's rewards program shift. Once the new rules roll out, the program will be known as MyPanera + Sip Club — nothing unlimited about it.
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