Breakfast 'available or included?' in Amsterdam.

There is really no such thing as a free breakfast. The cost of that breakfast is baked into the hotel rate if breakfast is provided at no extra cost. If you can't find a hotel with breakfast included within your budget, the best you can do is look at lower-priced hotels that charge extra for breakfast so your total nightly cost still falls within your budget.

Central-Amsterdam hotels are rather expensive these days.

The reason that breakfast is usually priced separately in Amsterdam is because of how the tourist tax is calculated. The tourist tax for hotels in Amsterdam is 12.5% of the flat room rate, so without things like breakfast, parking etc.

Terms like “moderate” mean different things to different people and hotel rates are very date dependent in Amsterdam. So if you want people to give you specific advice you would need to give a budget in euros and the dates you plan to be here.

It also depends on what breakfast you want. In March, I stayed at the Nadia, which I reviewed here: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/netherlands-reviews/hotel-nadia-recommendation-with-lots-of-caveats
Breakfast was included in the very reasonable price. It was decidedly "continental" in that it consisted of croissants, bread from a bag (meaning not nice, crusty bread that you sliced yourself), cheese, probably sliced meat, small "kids" yogurt (sweet), apples (and maybe other whole fruit like bananas), and coffee/tea/OJ. It was fine. If you want a buffet with hot food, I can't help you.

You make an excellent point, Dutch Traveler. I would certainly want any breakfast price quoted separately so as not to be taxed at that exceptionally high rate on my breakfast as well as on the room!

And the VAT tax on hotel rooms is increasing to 21% next year, according to an earlier report on this forum.

You can go to booking.com, put in your dates, the price range and the breakfast included filter to get an idea of what is available.

I remember when we would stay out on the south end of Amsterdam in a bed and breakfast. There were so many in the area.
Unfortunately, so many B&Bs were sold by the owners and they were converted into condominiums. We have not been back recently, but we are due a trip to this great city.

Holiday Inn Express Amsterdam - City Hall had breakfast included when I stayed there about a year ago. Nothing fancy, but it will tide you over until lunchtime for sure.

Hotel - The Craftsmen - has a wonderful included breakfast. The location is great.

We stayed at the Banks Mansion in August. 24 hour "complimentary" self-serve bar, evening Happy Hours and excellent breakfast included in the price of the room. Centrally located. Easy access to transportation. I don't know if you would consider it moderately priced. We thought it was reasonable. We would stay there again.

https://www.banksmansion.nl/en

We stayed at the Highlander which was centrally located. Breakfast was included which was excellent. They also had pastries available in the afternoon. I would highly recommend this hotel.

What do you consider "moderately priced"? We've stayed at Hotel Jakarta twice this year and an excellent breakfast was included. Price was about €225/night. It's about a 25 minute walk from Centraal station but there is a bus that stops right across the street and a tram that gets you within a 5 minute walk. We love everything about this hotel.

*for the 2nd visit we booked on Expedia which was about $75/ night less than we could get on the hotel's website.

I haven o idea what you view as moderately priced, but we stayed at the. Hotel Estherea in February 2024 and absolutely loved it. I was debating between this one and another, and this one was initially more expensive. My daughter found a promo code to include breakfasts with the Estherea, so we opted for that and it turned out to be less expensive overall with that factored in. So keep an eye out for specials, both on a hotels website but also their Instagram, etc. The breakfasts at Estherea are normally about $28 pp, so this was a big savings for us, and the breakfast was exceptional.