Pour Cost Calculator: Price Every Drink Your Bar Pours

How to Calculate Pour Cost on One Drink

Pour cost equals the cost of the pour divided by the menu price, times 100, and the pour cost calculator above runs it in three steps: cost per ounce, cost per drink, and then the percentage. The same math answers how to calculate liquor cost per drink by hand:

1. Cost per ounce = bottle cost ÷ ounces in the bottle. A 750 ml bottle holds 25.36 oz.
2. Cost per drink = cost per ounce × ounces poured, plus mixer and garnish.
3. Pour cost % = cost per drink ÷ menu price × 100.

A 1.5 oz pour of 80-proof spirits is one US standard drink, as defined by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). On paper, a 750 ml bottle gives 16.9 such pours, but a bar can only sell whole drinks, so the calculator counts 16. In addition, the waste field removes spills and tastings from the ounces you can actually sell. The formula never changes from drink to drink, only the inputs do.

Five Worked Examples: Shot, Highball, Cocktail, Wine, and a Draft Pint

Each example below runs the same three steps with different containers, so you can check the pour cost calculator’s answer against your own math. The prices are example invoice prices, not market quotes; swap in your own.

Containers change the result more than recipes do. When the same keg loses 10% to foam and line cleaning, a pint costs $1.61 instead of $1.45, and beer pour cost at the same $7.00 price rises from 20.7% to 23.0%. A drink cost calculator that ignores the loss makes draft look cheaper than it is. The next question is how a percentage turns into a markup.

Liquor Markup, Profit Margin, and the Menu Price

Pour cost, markup, and margin are one number seen three ways: a 20% pour cost equals a 5× markup and an 80% gross margin, so the same tool works as a liquor markup calculator and a liquor profit margin calculator.

As a liquor pricing calculator, the tool divides cost by your target and rounds the price up to the next $0.25, $0.50, $1.00, or .99 ending, so rounding never pushes you above target. After rounding, it shows the actual percentage, which is often a point lower. However, a lower percentage doesn’t always mean more money. A premium bourbon at 28% can earn more dollars per drink than a well pour at 15%. That is why bars aim for a blended average across the whole menu instead of one number for every bottle. So what number is reasonable for each type of drink?

Target Ranges by Drink Type

There is no single right pour cost: spirits usually run lowest, wine by the glass runs highest, and the calculator colors each result against the range for the tab you’re on. Pour costs differ by drink type, and industry guides don’t agree on exact numbers, so the table shows both the working target the calculator uses and the spread across published bar-industry guides.

Wine runs higher because an opened bottle lasts only a few days, and every glass poured down the sink at close raises the cost of the glasses that sold. Draft runs lower because an ounce from a keg costs less than an ounce from any bottle. Neighborhood bars and premium menus usually sit at the top of each range, while high-volume bars sit at the bottom.

“Every drink on the menu should hit the same pour cost.” Not quite: one flat percentage either overprices the well or underprices the top shelf, and wine by the glass can’t reach a spirits target without losing guests.

Cocktails are where the range is hardest to hit, because the cost is spread across several lines.

Cocktail Pricing Calculator: Cost Every Ingredient

A cocktail’s cost is the sum of each ingredient’s ounces times its cost per ounce, plus garnish, and the Cocktail tab of the pour cost calculator adds those lines and prices the drink at your target. Enter what each bottle or juice costs and how much goes into the glass; the cocktail cost calculator does the rest.

The lime, syrup, and salt make up 15% of this drink’s cost. Skip them, and the margarita looks like an 18.0% drink instead of a 21.2% one, a gap of more than 3 points on every glass. House-made syrups, dashes of bitters, specialty ice, and garnishes all belong on the list. For batched cocktails, cost the whole batch per liter first, then divide by the number of servings it yields. Wine and beer, however, start from a different container.

Pours per Bottle and Keg

Every container becomes ounces first: a 750 ml bottle holds 25.36 oz, which is 16 full 1.5 oz pours or four 6 oz glasses of wine, and a half barrel of beer holds 124 sixteen-ounce pints. That is how the beverage cost calculator handles wine and draft beer from the same starting point as spirits, and how the liquor cost calculator counts full pours.

The 700 ml size sits in the list because the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) added it, among 15 new spirits sizes, to the US standards of fill on January 10, 2025, so more imports now arrive in it. A wine pour cost starts from 5 glasses at 5 oz, the NIAAA standard glass of 12% wine, or 4 at 6 oz per bottle. The Brewers Association’s Draught Beer Quality Manual recommends cleaning draft lines about every two weeks, and clean lines pour less foam, so more of each keg reaches a glass. Containers set the base cost; however, two habits behind the bar quietly change it.

Happy Hour and Over-Pouring: Two Hidden Price Cuts

A happy hour discount and an extra quarter ounce both raise pour cost the same way a lower menu price does, and the drink price calculator shows each one in dollars before it reaches the menu.

Happy hour. Dropping the bourbon from $8.50 to $6.00 moves its pour cost from 19.5% to 27.6%. Profit per drink falls from $6.84 to $4.34, so the bar has to sell 1.58 happy hour drinks to earn what one full-price drink earns. Seven states, including Massachusetts and Utah, still ban happy hour outright, and others cap its hours or discount. Indiana, for example, has allowed it since July 1, 2024, for no more than four hours a day.

Over-pouring. A 1.75 oz free pour on a 1.5 oz recipe adds 16.7% to every drink. At the same $8.50 price, pour cost climbs to 22.7%, and the bottle gives 14 drinks instead of 16: $4.00 of product and $20.53 of missed sales per bottle. At 100 spirit drinks a night for 26 nights, the extra liquor comes to about $718 a month.

Bars that run happy hour prices on the bar’s menu screen in Decker switch the discount on schedule, so it ends at the minute it should. One drink, however, is only the recipe; the whole bar tells a different story.