Grams to Cups Converter

Convert grams to cups and cups to grams for the ingredient you are actually cooking with — flour, sugar, butter, rice and more.

Enter Your Measurement

Grams per cup depends entirely on the ingredient — flour and honey are not interchangeable.
Water is 1 g/ml. Cooking oils are about 0.92 g/ml.

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How Grams and Cups Are Converted

Grams measure mass. Cups measure volume. They are not the same kind of quantity, so no single number converts one to the other — you also need to know how heavy the ingredient is for its size, which is its density. That is the entire reason this converter asks which ingredient you are measuring.

Grams per Cup = Density (g/ml) × Cup Size (ml)

Cups = Grams ÷ Grams per Cup,   Grams = Cups × Grams per Cup

Worked example

Convert 250 g of all-purpose flour into US cups. Flour has a density of about 0.5283 g/ml, and a US customary cup is 236.588 ml, so one cup holds 0.5283 × 236.588 = 125 g. Dividing gives 250 ÷ 125 = 2 cups exactly. Run the same 250 g through as honey instead and the answer changes completely: honey holds about 340 g per cup, so 250 g is only about 0.74 of a cup — less than three quarters. Same weight, same cup, less than half the volume.

How to convert grams to cups, step by step

  1. Select whether you are converting grams to cups or cups to grams.
  2. Choose the ingredient you are measuring, because grams per cup depends entirely on its density.
  3. Select the cup standard your recipe uses — US customary 236.588 ml, US legal 240 ml, metric 250 ml or UK imperial 284.131 ml.
  4. Type the number of grams, or the number of cups, that you want to convert.
  5. Read the converted amount, along with the nearest friendly cup fraction, the volume in millilitres and the grams-per-cup figure used.

Not all cups are the same size

Four different cups are in common use, and a recipe rarely tells you which one it means. The metric cup is about 5.7 percent bigger than the US recipe cup, and the old UK imperial cup is bigger still — enough to matter in baking, though rarely enough to ruin a curry.

Cup StandardVolumeWhere It Is Used
US customary cup236.588 mlUS recipes and cookbooks
US legal cup240 mlUS nutrition labelling
Metric cup250 mlIndia, Australia, New Zealand
UK imperial cup284.131 mlOlder British recipes

Quick reference: grams in one US cup

Ingredient1 Cup½ Cup¼ Cup

Figures are for a US customary cup of 236.588 ml, spooned in and levelled off rather than scooped and packed.

Why weighing beats measuring

Flour is the troublemaker. Dipping the cup straight into the bag compacts the flour and can pack in 20 percent more than spooning it in gently and levelling the top — the difference between a tender cake and a dense one. Brown sugar has the opposite problem: recipes assume it is firmly packed, so a loosely filled cup falls short. A kitchen scale sidesteps all of it, because 125 g is 125 g no matter how it got into the bowl. Use cups for liquids and forgiving recipes, and reach for the scale when the baking actually matters.

Written and reviewed by Last updated

Frequently Asked Questions

There is no single answer, because a cup measures volume while a gram measures weight. One US cup holds 125 g of all-purpose flour, 200 g of granulated sugar, 227 g of butter and 340 g of honey — the same space, filled with ingredients of very different densities. This is why the converter asks which ingredient you are measuring before it gives you a number.

Because grams and cups measure different physical quantities. A gram is a unit of mass; a cup is a unit of volume. Converting between them requires the density of the specific substance, which is why honey — nearly three times denser than flour — puts 340 g in the same cup that holds only 125 g of flour. Any chart that offers a single grams-per-cup figure for all ingredients is simply wrong for most of them.

One US cup of all-purpose flour (maida) weighs about 125 g. Whole wheat flour (atta) is slightly lighter at about 120 g per cup, and bread flour slightly heavier at about 127 g. Flour is the ingredient most affected by how you fill the cup: scooping the cup directly into the bag compacts the flour and can add 20 percent or more, so spoon the flour in and level it off for the figures used here.

No. A US customary cup used in recipes is 236.588 ml, the US legal cup used on nutrition labels is 240 ml, the metric cup used in India, Australia and New Zealand is 250 ml, and the old UK imperial cup is 284.131 ml. A metric cup is therefore about 5.7 percent larger than a US recipe cup, which matters for baking. Use the cup size selector above to match whichever standard your recipe was written in.

Multiply the number of cups by the grams-per-cup figure for that ingredient. For example, 2 cups of granulated sugar at 200 g per cup is 2 × 200 = 400 g. Switch the direction control above to Cups to Grams and the converter does this for you, showing the grams-per-cup figure it used so you can check the arithmetic yourself.

Published grams-per-cup figures vary by a few grams between sources because they depend on how the ingredient is packed, how humid the kitchen is, and how finely the ingredient is milled. Flour is quoted anywhere from 120 g to 130 g per cup by different reputable sources. Differences of this size are normal and rarely matter outside precision baking — if a recipe is sensitive enough for it to matter, weigh the ingredient rather than measuring it by volume.

By weight, whenever you can. A kitchen scale removes the packing problem entirely: 125 g of flour is 125 g however it was scooped, while a cup of flour can vary by 20 percent or more depending on technique. Cups remain convenient for liquids and for forgiving recipes, but professional and published baking recipes increasingly give grams first for exactly this reason.

Half a US cup of butter is about 113 g, which is one standard American stick. A full cup is about 227 g, or two sticks. Butter is one of the easier ingredients to convert because it is solid and uniform, so it does not suffer from the packing variability that affects flour and brown sugar.

Yes. Choose Custom ingredient from the list and enter its density in grams per millilitre. Water is 1 g/ml by definition, most cooking oils are around 0.92 g/ml, and dry powders are usually between 0.35 and 0.85 g/ml. If you know the grams per cup instead of the density, divide that figure by your cup size in millilitres to get the density.