Sage sells one espresso machine in several sizes of ambition, and the gap between the cheapest and the dearest is about £1,370. What follows is what each step up buys in facts Sage publishes. Outside the UK the same machines are sold as Breville, with the model numbers changed from SES to BES.
The eight machines, in price order
These are the eight Sage machines that have a page on this site, and nothing here is ranked. Prices are the UK range on 21 September 2026.
| Machine | Heating | Heat-up | Grinder | Milk | Size W x D x H | Tank | UK price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| the Bambino | ThermoJet | 3 s | none | manual wand | 302 x 154 x 342 mm | 1.4 L | £329 to £329.95 |
| the Bambino Plus | ThermoJet | 3 s | none | automatic wand | 194 x 362 x 304 mm | 1.9 L | £349.95 to £399.95 |
| the Barista Express | thermocoil | not published | 16 settings | manual wand | 318 x 351 x 404 mm | 2 L | £499.95 |
| the Barista Pro | ThermoJet | 3 s | 30 settings | manual wand | 408 x 350 x 332 mm | 2 L | £599.95 |
| the Barista Express Impress | thermocoil | 55 s | 25 settings | manual wand | 422 x 367 x 310 mm | 2 L | £714.99 to £729.95 |
| the Barista Touch | ThermoJet | 3 s | 30 settings | automatic wand | 400 x 319 x 314 mm | 2 L | £1,049 to £1,049.95 |
| the Oracle Jet | ThermoJet | not published | 45 settings | automatic wand | 422 x 360 x 378 mm | 2.3 L | £1,699.95 |
| the Dual Boiler | dual boiler | not published | none | manual wand | 379 x 403 x 371 mm | 2.5 L | no UK price listed |
Sage publishes the Bambino’s dimensions as 30.2 x 15.4 x 34.2 cm under the heading width, depth, height, which reads as a machine wider than it is deep. The Bambino Plus is listed the other way round. Measure the space you have before trusting either figure.
£329 to £399.95: the two machines with no grinder
The Bambino and the Bambino Plus are the same idea at two prices. Both heat in 3 seconds on ThermoJet, both take a 54 mm portafilter, and neither grinds. The roughly £20 to £70 between them buys one thing: the Plus swaps the manual steam wand for an automatic one. If you are weighing the Plus against a separate grinder or a different brand entirely, the Bambino Plus and Gaggia Classic comparison covers that fork.
£499.95: the Barista Express adds the grinder
This is the biggest single jump in the range, about £100 to £150 over a Bambino Plus, and it buys a conical steel burr grinder with 16 settings and a 250 g hopper on top of the machine. Everything else is manual. Sage’s manual for the Barista Express lists a “GRIND SIZE selector” and a “GRIND AMOUNT dial” as separate controls, and the tamper is the “Integrated removable 54mm tamper” clipped to the body. You dose, you tamp, you steam. The Barista Express and Bambino Plus comparison sets out what you give up by going the other way.
£599.95: the Barista Pro adds heat and a screen
The extra £100 over the Barista Express buys two published changes. The heating system goes from thermocoil to ThermoJet, which Sage rates at 3 seconds to extraction temperature, and the grinder goes from 16 settings to 30. It also gains a display: Sage’s manual for the Barista Pro says “The LCD will display FLUSH” during cleaning and notes that “The default grind size is 15” on the same screen. The Barista Express and Barista Pro comparison goes through the rest.
£714.99: the Impress adds the tamp, not the heat
The Barista Express Impress is the odd step. It costs about £115 more than the Barista Pro and keeps the older thermocoil heating, with a published heat-up of 55 seconds against the Pro’s 3. What the money buys is the tamping. Sage’s manual for the Impress describes “Assisted Tamping with a Barista Twist Finish” worked by an “Assisted Tamp Lever”, with a tamp indicator that “Flashes when ready to tamp”, and says it is “recommended to tamp twice to achieve a very polished coffee puck”. Grind settings land at 25, between the Express and the Pro.
So the choice at this end of the range is speed or consistency, not one being the better machine.
£1,049: the Barista Touch adds the touch screen and automatic milk
The Barista Touch keeps the Barista Pro’s ThermoJet heating, 3 second heat-up and 30 grind settings, and spends roughly £450 on the interface and the milk. Sage’s manual for the Barista Touch asks you to “keep the touch screen dry and clean to ensure that the machine functions properly” and has you “select the chosen filter” on that screen rather than with a button. The steam wand becomes automatic. It is also the shallowest of the grinder machines at 319 mm. The Barista Pro and Barista Touch comparison is the detailed version of this paragraph.
£1,699.95: the Oracle Jet does the dosing and tamping
The top machine in the range moves to a 58 mm portafilter, 45 grind settings and a 340 g hopper, and takes the last manual step off you. Sage’s manual for the Oracle Jet describes an “Auto Grind Dose & Tamp” cycle that “grinds, doses and tamps 22 grams of coffee”, and a “5 inch HD touch screen”. Its tank is 2.3 litres, the largest outside the Dual Boiler.
The Dual Boiler: the only one with two boilers
The Dual Boiler is not a step up the same ladder. It has no grinder at all, takes 58 mm baskets and a 58 mm tamper, carries the biggest tank at 2.5 litres and draws 2,200 W, the most in the range. It is the only Sage machine here whose heating system is a true dual boiler, so shot and steam run at once. Sage’s manual for the Dual Boiler describes a “Backlit LCD interface” and an “Integrated & removable 58mm tamper”. We have no current UK price for it, which is why the table leaves that cell empty.
Two Oracles Sage marks as discontinued
Older buying advice still points at the Oracle and the Oracle Touch. On 21 September 2026 both the Oracle product page and the Oracle Touch product page on Sage’s UK site carry the line “This model has been discontinued.” Neither has a page here, and the Oracle Jet is what Sage sells in that slot now.
What stays the same across all eight
All eight publish a 24 month UK warranty, sell spare parts, and take the same ClaroSwiss water filter, so the consumables bill does not change with the price. Sage names a descaler for six of them, powder for the five grinder machines and Sage Descaler for the Dual Boiler, and names none for the Bambino or the Bambino Plus. The cleaning guide, the descaling guide and the guide to using a Sage machine apply across the range.
