Sage coffee machine: Bambino, Bambino Plus or Barista Express

The short answer

• If you want the smallest outlay and already own, or plan to buy, a grinder: the Bambino.
• If cappuccino and flat white are your usual order: the Bambino Plus, for its automatic steam wand.
• If you want one appliance on the worktop: the Barista Express, with its built-in grinder.
• If you have chosen a Bambino and need the grinder: the Smart Grinder Pro.

Sage’s catalogue is wider than these four products. We compare only what we have verified on Sage’s own pages and manuals.

How to read the tables

The table at the top mixes three machines and a grinder, so it shows what they have in common: grinder, hopper, power, size and price bracket. “No grinder” on the two Bambinos is the key fact of the page. Their hopper cell reads “not stated” simply because there is no hopper.

The three machines get their own table here, with the espresso criteria:

Three notes on that table. “Pressurised and single-wall” means both kinds of basket are supplied, on all three. The heating cell reads ThermoJet for the two Bambinos and Thermocoil for the Barista Express: two names Sage uses for two systems, and it gives a heat-up time for the first only. And a pressure gauge is stated for the Barista Express only.

What the three machines share

According to Sage, all three have:

• a pump rated at 15 bar;
• a 54 mm portafilter;
• PID temperature control;
• single-wall and dual-wall baskets, for one and two cups.

That last point matters more than it looks. Sage’s manual assigns the dual-wall (pressurised) baskets to pre-ground or older coffee, and the single-wall baskets to freshly ground coffee. You can therefore start with supermarket coffee and move to fresh beans without changing machine. Among the manufacturers in our espresso comparison, Sage is the only one to publish its portafilter diameter and to name both basket types.

What separates them

Grinder or no grinder

The Barista Express grinds: steel conical burrs, 16 settings, a 250 g hopper. The two Bambinos do not, and their single-wall baskets call for freshly ground coffee. A Bambino is half of a set-up; count the grinder in.

Milk

The Bambino and the Barista Express have a manual steam wand. The Bambino Plus has an automatic one, with adjustable milk temperature and texture, which you can still use by hand.

Tank

• Sage the Bambino (SES450)1.4 l
• Sage the Bambino Plus (SES500)1.9 l
• Sage the Barista Express (SES875)2 l

The Bambino’s 1.4 l is the smallest. If you steam milk for several drinks, the larger tanks of the Plus and the Barista Express mean fewer refills.

Heating

The two Bambinos use ThermoJet, with a heat-up time of 3 s according to Sage. That is the manufacturer’s figure; time to first cup is one of the things we plan to measure. The Barista Express uses the system Sage calls Thermocoil. Sage’s UK page for the Bambino Plus mentions both names; we recorded ThermoJet, the one given on all three country pages.

Hot water and accessories

The Bambino has a dedicated hot water function; on the Bambino Plus, hot water comes through the steam wand. The Bambino is supplied with a plastic tamper and has an aluminium portafilter; the Plus has a stainless steel portafilter and adds a levelling tool; the Barista Express has a stainless steel portafilter, a removable magnetic tamper and a dosing funnel.

Size: one machine out of three

We publish dimensions for the Barista Express only: 31.8 cm wide, 40.4 cm tall and 35.1 cm deep. For the Bambino, Sage’s three country pages give figures in an order that cannot be right; for the Bambino Plus, the UK page contradicts the German and French ones. We would rather show nothing than a wrong number. Sage states no weight for any of the three.

Two routes to the same cup: Bambino and grinder, or Barista Express

This is the decision most Sage buyers face, so here it is on the data alone.

The table above compares the grinder inside the Barista Express with the separate Smart Grinder Pro. The separate grinder states 60 settings against 16, a 450 g hopper against 250 g, and timed dosing shown on an LCD display.

• If you want finer steps and a grinder you can keep when you change machine, the two-appliance route has the stronger spec sheet. It takes more worktop: the grinder alone is 21.5 cm wide.
• If you want one plug, one footprint and a pressure gauge, the Barista Express does it in 31.8 cm, with the largest tank of the three.

On budget, a Bambino is mid-range and the Smart Grinder Pro sits at the top of the entry-level bracket in the UK, while the Barista Express is a single upper mid-range appliance. Which total is lower on a given day is for the price buttons to tell you. A cheaper pairing, the Bambino with a Baratza Encore ESP, is set out in machine and grinder pairings.

The four products, one by one

Mid-range, no grinder

Sage the Bambino (SES450)

Espresso machineMid-range

The entry to the range. How it compares with the cheaper De’Longhi is covered in Dedica EC685 vs Sage Bambino.

Portafilter diameter

54 mm

Heating system

ThermoJet

Water tank

1.4 l

PID temperature control

Yes

Hot water function

Yes

Regular price on the manufacturer’s website:£329.95as of 10 November 2026Price stated by the manufacturer, excluding promotions. The retailer’s current price may differ.

Check price on Amazon*Read the model profile

Upper mid-range, automatic milk

Sage the Bambino Plus (SES500)

Espresso machineUpper mid-range

Pay the extra bracket for the milk and the tank, not for the espresso: on that side the spec sheet matches the Bambino’s.

Milk system

Automatic frother

Portafilter diameter

54 mm

Water tank

1.9 l

PID temperature control

Yes

Heat-up time (manufacturer figure)

3 s

Regular price on the manufacturer’s website:£399.95as of 10 November 2026Price stated by the manufacturer, excluding promotions. The retailer’s current price may differ.

Check price on Amazon*Read the model profile

Upper mid-range, built-in grinder

Sage the Barista Express (SES875)

Espresso machineUpper mid-range

Sage’s all-in-one. Its nearest rival in our database is the Ninja Luxe Café Premier, which doses by weight and adds filter coffee: see Barista Express vs Ninja Luxe Café.

Grinder

Steel conical burrs

Grind settings

16

Bean hopper

250 g

Water tank

2 l

Pressure gauge

Yes

Price at Amazon:£499.00as of 10 Nov 2026, 10:31Including VAT; delivery may be extra. The price is checked once a day and may have changed since. The price shown on Amazon at the time of purchase is the one that applies.

Regular price on the manufacturer’s website:£629.95as of 10 November 2026

Check price on Amazon*Read the model profile

Entry-level bracket, timed dosing

Sage the Smart Grinder Pro (SCG820)

Coffee grinderEntry level

You choose shots or cups, set the time, and the grinder stops. In the UK it sits at the top of the entry-level bracket. A simpler Sage grinder without a display, the Dose Control Pro, exists but is not in our database. More grinders in the grinder comparison.

Grinder

Steel conical burrs

Grind settings

60

Dosing

Timed

Bean hopper

450 g

Width

21.5 cm

Price at Amazon:£179.99as of 10 Nov 2026, 10:31Including VAT; delivery may be extra. The price is checked once a day and may have changed since. The price shown on Amazon at the time of purchase is the one that applies.

Regular price on the manufacturer’s website:£209.95as of 10 November 2026

Check price on Amazon*Read the model profile

A word on model codes

Sage’s own website refers to these products with codes beginning BES for machines and BCG for grinders; the European retail codes begin SES and SCG. The SES450 is the Bambino, the SES500 the Bambino Plus, the SES875 the Barista Express and the SCG820 the Smart Grinder Pro.

What Sage’s pages cannot tell you

This page rests on Sage’s product pages and manuals. We have not used any of these four products: nothing here describes the espresso, the milk foam, the noise or how the machines hold up. Our own measurements will be added as we buy equipment, and published separately from Sage’s figures.

The data has gaps of its own: no weights, no reliable dimensions for the two Bambinos, no burr diameter for either grinder, and one heating system named two ways on the same page.

Go further

• New to espresso? Espresso machines for beginners.
• Setting the grinder: the grind size guide.
• What a home espresso costs per cup, with your own figures:

ToolCost per cup calculator: beans or pods? ToolWhich coffee machine should I buy? A chooser based on your needs