There are several benefits to using a yogurt starter that cultures at room temperature on your counter rather than the common crock pot or oven method for making yogurt.

1. Save money. With crock pot, slow cooker and oven methods of making yogurt, you will need a small amount of commercial yogurt to use as a starter culture.  This requires buying yogurt on a regular basis.  Room temperature yogurt starters are self-perpetuating so a small amount of each batch is used to create the next batch.  Therefore once you invest in the initial yogurt starter culture, you won’t need to put additional culture each time you make yogurt saving money.
2. Less work. With room temperature yogurt starters, there’s no milk to heat or cool, no crock pot or oven temperature to maintain.  You simply add the starter to milk (straight from the fridge), stir, cover and leave it on the counter.
3. Less waste. Since you don’t have to continually buy commercial yogurt to use as a starter, there will be less packaging waste.  Not using the oven or crock pot also saves energy costs.
   
4. If you use raw milk, it stays raw. Make raw yogurt! If you are a fan of raw milk, you know the pain of heating it to make yogurt.  Using a yogurt starter that cultures at room temperature allows you to maintain the raw nature of the milk while benefiting from eating yogurt (note: a small amount of milk will need to be heated to use as a starter culture but the finished yogurt will be 15/16 raw).