One cup of sugar in grams is 198, and brown sugar weighs more

A level cup of granulated sugar weighs 198 grams on King Arthur Baking's ingredient weight chart, and plenty of recipes round that up to 200. So if you just need one cup of sugar in grams for a cookie recipe, write down 198 and get baking.

The catch is that the number only works for white sugar. Packed brown sugar comes in at 213 grams, powdered sugar at 113 and raw turbinado at 180. Same cup, very different weights. When a recipe asks for 1 cup sugar in grams and doesn't name the type, it almost always means granulated.

A cup of sugar in grams for every type

Here's the answer to how many grams in a cup of sugar for each one you're likely to have in the pantry this baking season. The half-cup column is the cup weight divided by two, rounded to the nearest gram, except coconut sugar, which King Arthur lists directly at 77 grams per half cup.

The spread comes down to what's in the cup besides sugar. Brown sugar carries molasses and gets pressed down, so more of it fits. Powdered sugar is ground so fine that a lot of the cup is air. Demerara has big, dense crystals that pack tighter than turbinado, even though the two look alike.

Powdered sugar weighs 113 grams a cup and granulated weighs 198. Swap them cup for cup and your recipe quietly loses 85 grams of sugar.

Sugar cups to grams for every common measure

Most recipes don't ask for a neat single cup. These are the granulated weights for the fractions you'll actually see, worked out from the 198 gram cup.

3/4 cup of sugar to grams

Three quarters of 198 is 148.5, so call it 149 grams. That's a common amount in quick breads and muffins, and it's the one people most often get wrong by eyeballing a half cup plus a bit.

How many grams in a tablespoon of sugar?

A cup holds 16 tablespoons, so a level tablespoon of granulated sugar is about 12.4 grams. A teaspoon is a third of that, roughly 4.1 grams. For coffee or a glaze, rounding to 12 and 4 is close enough.

100 grams of sugar to cups

100 grams of granulated sugar is a hair over half a cup, about 0.51 cups. European recipes love round numbers like 100, 150 and 250 grams, and 250 grams lands at roughly 1 1/4 cups.

How many cups in a pound of sugar

Domino's packaging chart puts 1 pound of granulated sugar at 2 1/4 cups, 1 pound of brown sugar at about 2 1/3 cups firmly packed, and 1 pound of powdered sugar at 3 3/4 cups unsifted. The weight math agrees: 453.6 grams divided by 198 grams per cup is 2.29 cups of white sugar.

How many cups of sugar in a 4 lb bag?

A 4 lb bag of granulated sugar holds about 9 cups, according to Domino's sugar packaging equivalents. Four pounds of packed brown sugar works out to 10 cups, and the same weight of powdered sugar fills about 15.

A 4 lb bag of granulated sugar holds about 9 cups. A recipe that calls for 2 cups uses 396 grams, so one bag covers four batches with about 230 grams left over.

Brown sugar cups to grams, and why packing matters

Recipes say "firmly packed" for a reason. King Arthur weighs a packed cup of brown sugar at 213 grams, yet Domino's 2 1/3 cups per pound works out to about 194 grams a cup. That 19 gram gap is just the difference between two people pressing sugar into a cup. A scale ends the argument.

Powdered sugar cups to grams

Powdered sugar is the touchiest of the lot. King Arthur lists 113 grams for an unsifted cup, while Domino's 3 3/4 cups per pound comes to about 121 grams. Sift it first and the cup gets lighter still, which is why frosting recipes that give grams turn out more consistent.

What a cup of sugar costs, and what a bad measure costs you

White sugar averaged $1.019 a pound in U.S. cities in September 2026, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data on FRED. That's about 0.22 cents a gram, which puts a 198 gram cup at roughly 44 cents.

So the sugar itself is cheap. The butter, eggs, chocolate and oven time around it aren't, and a mismeasured cup can ruin all of them at once. Swap packed brown sugar for white cup for cup and you add 15 grams plus extra moisture. Use powdered in place of granulated and you're 85 grams short. Weighing costs you nothing and saves the whole batch.

At $1.019 a pound, a cup of granulated sugar costs about 44 cents. The expensive part of a batch of cookies is everything else in the bowl.

How to weigh sugar with or without a kitchen scale

With a scale it takes seconds. Set the bowl down, press tare, pour until you hit the number. If your recipe lists ounces, 198 grams is just under 7 ounces, and our grams to ounces converter handles the rest.

No scale? Spoon granulated sugar into the cup and level it with a knife rather than scooping, and pack brown sugar until it holds its shape when turned out. For a quick check, a photo estimate from the Scale for Grams app gets you in the right range. The same habit pays off with flour, too, so keep our flour cups to grams chart handy.

Sugar conversion questions bakers ask

Is a cup of sugar 200 grams or 198 grams?

Both numbers are fine. King Arthur measures 198 grams, and many recipe writers round to 200 because it's easier to remember. The 2 gram difference won't change any home recipe.

How many grams is 1 cup of brown sugar?

A firmly packed cup of brown sugar weighs about 213 grams. Loosely spooned, it weighs noticeably less, so if the recipe gives grams, trust the grams over the cup.

Does a cup of sugar weigh the same as a cup of flour?

No. King Arthur lists all-purpose flour at 120 grams a cup, so a cup of sugar weighs about 78 grams more. That's why swapping volume measurements between ingredients never works. If you're replacing sugar with honey, check our honey to sugar ratio guide first.

Need to weigh sugar fast and your scale's buried in a drawer? Download Scale for Grams and get an AI-powered weight estimate from a photo in seconds. Get the app here: iOS.