How Many Grams Are in a Cup? (Full Chart)

Short answer: it depends on the ingredient. A cup of all-purpose flour is about 120 grams, a cup of granulated sugar is about 200 grams, a cup of butter is about 227 grams, and a cup of water is about 237 grams. There’s no single number, because a cup measures volume and grams measure weight.

That surprises a lot of people, so let’s break down exactly how many grams are in a cup of everything you bake with, and why the number keeps changing.

If you just need the answer for a specific amount, the cups to grams converter does it instantly. For the full forward and reverse guides, see cups to grams and grams to cups.

Why a cup isn’t a fixed number of grams

A cup is a fixed amount of space, about 237 millilitres in the US. Grams measure weight. When you fill that same space with different ingredients, each one weighs something different, because they pack differently.

Think of a cup of feathers versus a cup of sand. Same space, wildly different weight. Flour is the feathers of the kitchen and sugar is closer to the sand, so a cup of each lands on a different number of grams. That’s the whole reason recipes that care about accuracy give weights instead of cups.

How many grams in a cup of each ingredient

Here’s the full per-ingredient chart. These are US cup weights, which is what American recipes mean.

Ingredient	Grams in 1 cup	Ounces in 1 cup
All-purpose flour	120 g	4.2 oz
Bread flour	127 g	4.5 oz
Cake flour	114 g	4.0 oz
Whole wheat flour	130 g	4.6 oz
Granulated sugar	200 g	7.1 oz
Brown sugar (packed)	220 g	7.8 oz
Powdered sugar	120 g	4.2 oz
Butter	227 g	8.0 oz
Milk	240 g	8.5 oz
Water	237 g	8.4 oz
Vegetable oil	218 g	7.7 oz
Honey	340 g	12.0 oz
White rice (uncooked)	185 g	6.5 oz
Rolled oats	90 g	3.2 oz
Cocoa powder	85 g	3.0 oz
Cornstarch	120 g	4.2 oz
Chocolate chips	170 g	6.0 oz
Peanut butter	258 g	9.1 oz
Shredded coconut	80 g	2.8 oz
Almond flour	96 g	3.4 oz

The four you’ll look up most

If you remember nothing else, these four cover the vast majority of recipes.

Ingredient	Grams in a cup	Easy way to remember
Flour	120 g	Light and airy, so the lowest
Sugar	200 g	Dense, so nearly double the flour
Butter	227 g	Two sticks, or 8 ounces
Water	237 g	The reference: 1 ml is 1 gram

How many grams in a cup of flour, really?

Flour is the trickiest one, because how you fill the cup changes the answer. Spoon flour in gently and level it off, and a cup is about 120 grams. Dip the cup into the bag and scoop, and you’ll compress it to 140 grams or more. That 20 gram swing is enough to make a cake dense, which is the single most common baking mistake at home.

So when a recipe says a cup of flour, it almost always means the lighter, spooned 120 grams. When accuracy matters, weigh it and you’ll skip the guesswork entirely.

US cups vs metric cups vs a “250 gram cup”

People often assume a cup is 250 grams, but that mixes up two different things. A metric cup is 250 millilitres of volume, not 250 grams of weight. A US cup is 237 millilitres. Filling either one with flour still gives you roughly 120 grams, not 250.

Cup standard	Volume	Flour weight	Water weight
US cup	237 ml	120 g	237 g
Metric cup	250 ml	125 g	250 g
Japanese cup	200 ml	100 g	200 g

The only time a cup weighs 250 grams is when it’s a metric cup filled with water or another light liquid. For dry ingredients, the grams stay far lower.

How many grams in a cup of liquid

Liquids are the easy case, because their weight is close to their volume. Water’s the anchor: a US cup holds 237 millilitres and it weighs about 237 grams, since one millilitre of water is basically one gram. Everything else is measured against it.

Liquid	Grams in 1 cup	Millilitres in 1 cup
Water	237 g	237 ml
Milk	240 g	237 ml
Vegetable oil	218 g	237 ml
Honey	340 g	237 ml
Maple syrup	322 g	237 ml

Here’s the neat part: the millilitres don’t change, but the grams do. Every liquid fills the same 237 ml cup, yet honey weighs far more than oil because it’s denser. That’s the volume-versus-weight idea in a single row.

A quick way to remember it

You don’t need to memorise the whole chart. If you can hold onto four anchors, you’ll estimate almost anything: flour’s the light one at 120, sugar’s the dense one at 200, butter’s 227, and water’s 237. When you’re not sure about a new ingredient, ask yourself if it’s lighter or denser than flour, and you’ll land close.

Grams in smaller cup amounts

Recipes often call for part of a cup, so here’s how the grams break down for the big three ingredients.

Amount	Flour	Sugar	Butter
1/4 cup	30 g	50 g	57 g
1/3 cup	40 g	67 g	76 g
1/2 cup	60 g	100 g	113 g
3/4 cup	90 g	150 g	170 g
1 cup	120 g	200 g	227 g

The takeaway

There’s no universal number of grams in a cup, and that’s the key thing to remember. Flour sits around 120 grams, sugar around 200, butter around 227, and water around 237, with everything else scattered in between based on density. When a recipe really matters, weigh your ingredients in grams, and use this chart or the converter whenever you’re stuck without a scale.