Backbar Alternative

Backbar is a beverage inventory app, best known for its free tier. Bar Cop counts inventory the same way, and also has the whole back office built-in and included to help your bar grow when you need it.

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Side By Side

What each one actually covers.

BackbarBar Cop
Beverage inventory and pour costYesYes
How you countVisual count, no scaleFill sliders, no scale
Recipe and drink costingYesYes
Purchasing and vendorsYesYes
Usage, variance and stock reportsPaid plans onlyIncluded
Labor, scheduling, tips, overtime—Yes
Shift cash, over and short, voids, comps—Yes
Weekly close: sales, labor and cost of goods together—Yes
Audits that score you and price what they find—Four, on demand
Menu engineering and pricingDrink costingFull
13-week cash flow forecast—Yes
Events and catering—Yes
Weekly and month-end books, P&L—Yes
Where it runsWeb and mobile appAny browser, nothing to install
Works with your POSIntegrationsAny POS, drop the export
Built forBeverage inventoryThe whole independent back office

Backbar's plans, prices and features change over time. This compares the two on what each is built to do, based on Backbar's publicly listed information. Check their site for their current details.

The Real Comparison

Free, but it barely reports.

Backbar's headline is that it starts free, and that part is true. But the free plan stores your counts and hands almost nothing back. Usage, variance, pour cost and profit, the reports that make taking inventory worth doing at all, sit behind the paid plans, and free keeps only six months of history. A count you cannot turn into a number is just a list.

So compare the real thing, top plan against top plan. Backbar's best tier is priced per location and is still an inventory and reporting tool. Bar Cop is one price a month, and that price is the same inventory job plus your weekly numbers, the audits, the floor, the menu, events and the books. One bill, and a system built to put your counts to work rather than store them.

Count One Yourself

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Straight Answers

Bar Cop vs Backbar questions.

What operators ask when they are deciding between the two.

Is Backbar's free plan enough?
It depends what you want out of it. The free plan stores your counts, but usage, variance, pour cost and profit reporting sit on the paid plans. That leaves you doing the counting work without the answers the counting was for.
Does Backbar do labor or shift cash?
No. Backbar is beverage inventory, drink costing and purchasing, and it is focused on doing that. Schedules, hours, tips, overtime, drawer counts, voids and comps are all on the Bar Cop side of the table.
Do I need a scale with Backbar?
No, and you do not need one with Bar Cop either. Backbar counts visually and Bar Cop counts with a fill slider you set to where the liquid sits, down to a hundredth of a bottle. Neither one asks you to buy, charge or calibrate hardware.
Is Bar Cop as good as Backbar at inventory itself?
Judge it on that alone. Bar Cop counts a bar as a complete program and not a lite version: fill sliders, par levels, order sheets, deliveries, usage, variance, vendor price changes and waste, with the reports included rather than sold as a tier.
What does Bar Cop add over Backbar?
The rest of the back office on the same login: your weekly close, four audits you can run whenever you like, the floor tools for schedules, hours, tips and drawer cash, menu costing, a 13-week cash flow forecast, events, and your books.
Does Backbar replace my POS?
No, and neither does Bar Cop. Your POS rings the sales and both of these sit behind it. Backbar connects through integrations. Bar Cop reads the sales export your POS already produces, so there is nothing to wire together.
Which one covers the whole back office?
Bar Cop. Backbar covers one part of it, beverage inventory, and covers it properly. Bar Cop counts inventory just as fully and then runs the week, the floor, the menu, events and the books for one monthly price per bar.
Can I move from Backbar without losing my history?
Your product list comes across as a file: export it and drop it in, rather than typing hundreds of lines. Counts start fresh, because your first count in Bar Cop is the baseline everything after it is measured against. Keep your old export for the record.
Does Backbar need an integration to work?
It connects to POS systems through integrations, which is a list you have to be on. Bar Cop asks nothing of your POS beyond a report you can already download, so a system nobody has heard of works the same as a common one.
Bar Cop or Backbar for one independent bar?
Bar Cop, because one bar is exactly who it is built for. There is no tier that unlocks the reports, no per-seat charge for your managers, and no part of it aimed at a group with a back-office team you do not have.