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Yes — if your household drinks about a litre of sparkling water a day, a SodaStream pays for itself at around 60 litres and saves you somewhere between $1,000 and $1,350 over three years. Below that, the math gets thin fast. And if what you actually love is a specific brand — the particular bite of a Perrier, the flavour of a LaCroix — a SodaStream will not give you that, no matter how many flavour drops you add.
A SodaStream is a countertop carbonator: fit a pressurized CO₂ cylinder into the back, snap a bottle of cold tap water into the front, press until it fizzes. The price on the box is not really buying you a machine — they are simple and have not changed much in years. What you are deciding is whether to shift your sparkling water habit from a per-can cost to a per-cylinder cost, and whether that trade works at Canadian prices.
Quick Verdict
Worth it if you:
- Drink close to a litre of sparkling water a day between everyone in the house
- Have a Canadian Tire, Walmart or grocery chain nearby that runs cylinder exchange
- Are hauling cases up to a Toronto or Vancouver apartment without a car or an elevator
- Want fizz at a cottage or campsite with no power — the manual models run on nothing but the cylinder
Skip it if you:
- Drink a can or two a week — a case on sale beats it and always will
- Are chasing a specific brand's taste rather than bubbles in general
- Have no exchange counter within reasonable distance, since cylinders cannot be shipped
Real cost of ownership: $97–$228 CAD upfront, roughly $120–$245/year in CO₂ depending on whether you exchange cylinders in store or buy them new, and nothing at all in hydro for the manual models.
What it actually does (and doesn't)
Pressurized CO₂ dissolves into cold water and stays there under pressure until you open the bottle. Colder water holds more gas, which is why the instructions tell you to start with water from the fridge. Press the button more times and you get more fizz — that is the whole range of control, and the electric models simply automate it into three preset levels.
Here is what it will not do:
- It will not filter your water. Whatever comes out of your tap is what goes into the bottle, carbonated. If your water tastes like chlorine, you now have fizzy chlorine.
- It will not replicate a branded sparkling water. Perrier and San Pellegrino are mineral waters with their own dissolved mineral content, and at roughly $1.92 a litre they are a different product at a different price. You are making carbonated tap water, which is a different drink again.
- It will not carbonate anything but water. Juice, wine and pop all foam violently and can clog the nozzle. Flavour goes in after carbonation, not before.
When it's genuinely worth it in Canada
When you're a genuinely daily drinker. This is the whole ballgame. A 12-pack of bubly sparkling water on Amazon.ca runs about $6.98 for 12 × 355 mL cans — roughly $1.64 a litre. A 60-litre CO₂ cylinder works out to between 33 and 67 cents a litre depending on how you buy it. That is a gap of a dollar or more on every litre, which is why the machine disappears from the math so quickly. With grocery prices climbing faster than they have since 2023, a line item you can cut by 60 to 80 percent is unusual.
When you live near a store that runs exchange. This is the detail that decides the whole calculation, and most articles skip it. Canadian Tire lists its 60-litre screw-in exchange cylinder at $19.99 — that is the gas-only price, with a separate $20 core charge that applies only if you have no empty cylinder to hand back. Once you own a machine you always have an empty, so each cylinder after your first costs the gas price and nothing more. Bring the empty to the customer service desk along with your receipt; the receipt is what gets your original deposit refunded. Walmart, Home Depot and several grocery chains run comparable programs.
When carrying the cases is the actual problem. A case of sparkling water is heavy, awkward and takes up a shelf. If you live in a walk-up in Montreal or a downtown condo with no car, swapping a weekly case run for a cylinder trip every couple of months is worth something on its own, independent of the dollars.
When there's no power where you're drinking it. The Terra and the Art are entirely manual — no cord, no batteries, nothing but the cylinder. That makes them usable at a cottage running on a generator, in an RV, or on a boat, and it is the one case where the electric model is the wrong choice.
When it's not worth the money
If you drink less than about a litre a week. Break-even sits around 60 litres whether you exchange cylinders or buy them new. At a litre a week that takes over a year, and meanwhile $97 sits on your counter doing very little. Buy the case when it goes on sale — that is not a consolation prize, it is the right answer for most casual drinkers.
If you're buying it to replace a brand you love. Plenty of people buy one expecting LaCroix at home and get fizzy tap water instead. The flavour drops are sweetened concentrates and taste like sweetened concentrates. If the specific thing you enjoy is a brand's mineral profile, this is not the product that solves it.
If your tap water is the problem. Carbonation amplifies whatever is already there, so households on well water or heavy chlorination often find the result worse than the flat original. A filter pitcher is the cheaper first purchase, and it tells you whether a SodaStream would even be pleasant.
If there's no exchange counter near you. This catches rural, remote and northern households, and almost nobody writes about it. Canadian Tire notes on its own cylinder listing that because it is pressurized CO₂ it cannot be shipped within Canada and must be bought in store. If the nearest exchange point is a two-hour drive, your ongoing cost jumps from the $19.99 line to the $39.99 line and the swap becomes a logistics problem. Check what is near your postal code before you buy the machine, not after.
And the cheaper alternative worth naming: the machine is not where the money is. The Philips soda maker runs about $76.62, needs no electricity either, and rates 4.0 stars across roughly 2,350 ratings. Two catches: no CO₂ cylinder is included, so budget for one on top, and it takes the standard screw-in cylinder rather than Quick Connect — which is the type Canadian Tire's $19.99 exchange listing covers. If the cost math convinced you but the SodaStream price did not, the CO₂ arithmetic works identically on a cheaper machine.
Real cost of ownership in Canadian dollars
The sticker price is the smallest number in this decision, and the only one most articles talk about. Assume one litre a day — 365 litres a year, or 1,095 over three years. All prices are current as of writing and will drift.
What 60 litres of fizz actually costs, three ways:
| Route | Cylinder cost | Per litre |
|---|---|---|
| Canadian Tire exchange, screw-in cylinder | $19.99 (plus a $20 core charge only if you have no empty to trade) | $0.33 |
| Buy new at Home Depot Canada | $35.99 | $0.60 |
| Buy new on Amazon.ca | $39.99 | $0.67 |
| Canned sparkling water, for comparison | — | $1.64 |
One wrinkle before you plan around that first row: Canadian Tire stocks the screw-in and Quick Connect exchange cylinders as separate products and publishes a price online only for the screw-in. Terra and Art both take Quick Connect, so check that price at your own store rather than assuming the two match. The figures below use the published screw-in price as the exchange scenario.
What that means over three years at a litre a day:
| Exchanging | Buying new | Canned | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upfront | $97.33 | $97.33 | $0 |
| CO₂ per year | ~$122 | ~$243 | — |
| Three-year total | ~$442 | ~$787 | ~$1,794 |
| Saved versus cans | ~$1,352 | ~$1,007 | — |
Break-even lands at about 60 litres in every scenario — roughly two months of daily drinking. That is not a coincidence: a cheaper cylinder also makes the one included with your machine worth less as a credit, so the two effects largely cancel.
Four caveats before you treat those numbers as gospel:
- The 60-litre rating is an average, not a guarantee. SodaStream says yield depends on how heavily you carbonate — aggressive fizz costs you litres.
- SodaStream recommends keeping three cylinders in rotation, which is extra money up front the machine price does not include.
- Bottles carry expiry dates and need replacing every few years, at about $20 for a twin pack.
- On SodaStream's own mail-in exchange, empties go back within 60 days and an unreturned or damaged cylinder is charged $15 plus tax.
Hydro, meanwhile, is a non-issue. The manual models use no electricity at all.
How we reached this verdict
This verdict is built on published specifications and cylinder capacity ratings, current Canadian retail pricing from Canadian Tire, Home Depot Canada and Amazon.ca, the exchange terms those companies publish themselves, arithmetic you can redo with the figures above, and aggregate buyer ratings on the listings we link to. It is research rather than a hands-on review. Prices move and exchange pricing shifts with promotions, so treat every dollar figure as a snapshot.
If you've decided yes: our picks
SodaStream Terra Bundle — about $97.33
The one most people should buy. The SodaStream Terra Bundle is Amazon's Choice, rated 4.6 stars across more than 5,100 ratings, and ranks first in Amazon.ca's seltzer bottles and chargers category. It includes the machine, a 60 L Quick Connect cylinder, a dishwasher-safe bottle and flavour drops — which is why it lands cheaper than the machine sold alone. Manual, so no outlet required.
SodaStream Art Bundle — about $227.70
Worth the jump for one reason: the SodaStream Art Bundle ships with two cylinders and two bottles rather than one of each. Side lever instead of a push button, two-year manufacturer warranty, no electricity. Rated 4.5 stars across 240 ratings.
SodaStream Quick Connect 60 L CO₂ Cylinder — about $39.99
The part you will actually keep buying. The SodaStream Quick Connect 60 L CO₂ Cylinder rates 4.5 stars across roughly 1,390 ratings. Buying online is the convenient route rather than the cheap one — an exchange counter is where the savings in the table come from. Terra, Art and E-Terra take Quick Connect only; the older screw-in cylinders will not fit, and the two are stocked as separate products everywhere.
If you are weighing this against a different countertop habit, the same cost logic applies to coffee, and we ran the numbers on whether a Nespresso is worth it in Canada.
Frequently asked questions
Is a SodaStream worth it financially?
At a litre a day, clearly yes — roughly $442 over three years if you exchange cylinders locally, or about $787 if you always buy new, against about $1,794 for the equivalent in cans. Break-even sits around 60 litres either way. At a litre a week, clearly no; you would spend over a year reaching break-even. This is one of the few appliance questions with a real number attached, and it depends almost entirely on how much you drink and whether you can exchange locally. Work out your weekly litres and the arithmetic answers itself.
How much does a SodaStream CO₂ refill cost in Canada?
Canadian Tire lists its 60-litre screw-in exchange cylinder at $19.99 for the gas, with a $20 core charge that applies only if you have no empty to trade in. The Quick Connect version that Terra and Art machines take is a separate product with its own in-store price. Buying a cylinder outright instead runs about $35.99 at Home Depot Canada and about $39.99 on Amazon.ca. That is roughly 33 cents a litre on exchange against 60 to 67 cents buying new — a difference that compounds quickly at a litre a day. Prices move with promotions, so check your local store.
Can you exchange SodaStream cylinders at Canadian Tire?
Yes. Bring your empty to the customer service or returns desk with your receipt and pay the gas-only exchange price; the receipt is what triggers the refund of your original deposit. Two things to plan around: your replacement must match your machine's cylinder type, since screw-in and Quick Connect are not interchangeable and are stocked separately, and cylinders cannot be shipped, making this an in-store errand. Walmart, Home Depot and several grocery chains run comparable programs, and SodaStream runs its own mail-in exchange as a backup.
Is a SodaStream worth it for sparkling water?
For plain sparkling water, yes — that is what the machine is good at, and cold tap water carbonated at home is a close match for unflavoured store-bought seltzer. For flavoured sparkling water the case is weaker, because the drops are sweetened concentrates rather than the natural essences brands like bubly and LaCroix use. Buy it expecting excellent plain fizzy water and you will be happy.
Does SodaStream water taste the same as store-bought sparkling water?
Against plain unflavoured seltzer it is very close, and the fizz level is adjustable in a way canned water is not. Against mineral waters like Perrier or San Pellegrino, no — those carry dissolved minerals that give them a distinct taste. Your own tap water's character comes through either way, which is why water you do not enjoy flat is a poor starting point.
Can you use any CO₂ cylinder with a SodaStream Terra?
No. Terra, Art and E-Terra use Quick Connect and take Quick Connect cylinders only. Older SodaStream machines used a screw-in cylinder, and the two are not interchangeable. SodaStream's exchange program does accept cylinders from several other brands, so one from a competing machine is not necessarily a dead end — but confirm which system yours uses before ordering.
The Bottom Line
If a case of sparkling water is a standing item on your grocery list and there is a store nearby that will swap your empty cylinder, buy the machine — it clears its own cost inside two months and keeps paying after that. If sparkling water is an occasional treat, if what you love is a particular brand rather than bubbles themselves, or if the nearest exchange counter is an hour away, it will sit on your counter as an expensive reminder that you did the math backwards. Count your litres and check your nearest exchange counter. Everything else follows from that.
