Pour Cost Calculator
Enter a bottle cost, the size, your pour and the menu price. You get cost per pour, pours per bottle and your pour cost percentage.
This is your ideal pour cost, what the drink should cost at a clean pour. Your real number comes from counting inventory against sales, and it is almost always higher. That gap is the money worth chasing.
Healthy pour cost by category.
These are the ranges a well-run bar aims for. They are targets, not laws. Liquor carries the margin while beer and wine give some of it back, and where you actually land depends on your prices, your product mix, and how tight you pour.
| Category | Healthy pour cost | Margin on the sale |
|---|---|---|
| Well liquor | 5% to 12% | 88% to 95% |
| Call and premium liquor | 12% to 20% | 80% to 88% |
| Draft beer | 20% to 25% | 75% to 80% |
| Bottled and canned beer | 25% to 30% | 70% to 75% |
| Wine by the glass | 30% to 40% | 60% to 70% |
| Whole bar, blended | 18% to 24% | 76% to 82% |
A number inside the range is not the same as money in the bank. A calculator gives you the ideal. What you actually pour is a different figure, and the only way to see it is to count. Bar Cop reads your count against your sales and prices the gap in dollars, per category, so a high pour cost tells you which shelf to look at.
How pour cost is calculated.
Cost per pour
Divide the bottle cost by the pours in the bottle. Pours in a bottle is the size in ounces divided by your pour. A 750ml bottle is about 25.4 ounces, so a 1.5 ounce pour gives about 16.9 pours. A 30 dollar bottle over 16.9 pours is about 1.78 a pour.
Pour cost percentage
Divide the cost per pour by the menu price and multiply by 100. That 1.78 pour sold at 9 dollars runs a 19.8 percent pour cost. The percentage is the thing you compare across drinks, and against the range above, because the dollars alone will not tell you which drink is priced wrong.
Ideal is not actual
This math assumes a perfect pour, every time, with nothing lost. Real bars over-pour, spill and comp without logging it. Your real pour cost comes from counting what is on the shelf against what your sales say you poured. It runs higher, always. The distance between the two is what you lost.
The pour cost questions.
What operators ask when they are working out what a drink really costs.