Starbucks made over $207 million last year on gift card money you never spent.

Hundreds of millions of people load money onto Starbucks gift cards and the app before they ever buy a coffee. At any moment about $1.87 billion sits there, prepaid and unspent. Starbucks is holding a giant pile of your money for free.

The whole card is your prepaid money. The strip Starbucks tears off and books as profit was measured before you ever loaded it.: $1.87B prepaid · $208M never spent · your money

Here is the quiet part. A slice of that money is never spent: cards lost, apps forgotten, a few cents stranded on every balance. Starbucks can predict, statistically, how much will never be redeemed, so it books that slice as income. Accountants call it breakage. In fiscal 2024 it came to about $207.6 million, recognized as pure profit with no coffee ever changing hands.

Sell a promise, and the promises nobody redeems become pure profit.