What is a Good Pour Cost Percentage for Bars? (By Category)

You are staring at your P&L. Your pour cost came in at 26 percent. Is that bad?

Short answer: probably, but not definitely. A good pour cost percentage for most bars sits between 18 and 24 percent, with 20 percent being the industry average according to Toast’s bar profit margin report. At 26 percent, you are 2 points above the top of the healthy range. That is not a catastrophe, but it is leaving money on the table every single night.

The real answer depends on what kind of bar you run. A craft cocktail lounge can hit 26 percent and still be printing money. A sports bar pouring domestic drafts at 26 percent has a serious problem. This post breaks down the benchmarks by category so you can stop comparing apples to oranges.

What a good pour cost percentage actually measures

Pour cost is the cost of the liquid in the glass divided by the price you charge for it. If a drink costs you $2 to make and you sell it for $10, your pour cost is 20 percent.

It matters because beverage is usually the highest margin category in a bar. Food runs 28 to 35 percent cost. Beverage should run half that. Every point of pour cost you shave off drops almost entirely to the bottom line. A 2 point swing on a $40,000-per-month beverage program is $800 in your pocket. Every month.

What is a good pour cost percentage for a bar overall?

The industry-accepted range is 18 to 24 percent, with most healthy bars targeting 20 percent.

That number comes from decades of POS data and operator surveys. Backbar’s liquor cost guide pegs the average between 18 and 24 percent. Sculpture Hospitality lands in the same zone, with spirits specifically at 18 to 20 percent. Toast’s bar profit margin data backs it up: a 20 percent pour cost equals an 80 percent gross margin on every drink.

But the overall number hides a lot. A bar running a blended 22 percent pour cost could be hitting 18 percent on liquor and getting killed at 38 percent on wine. The category-level numbers are where you find the leaks. Track them on a simple bar inventory spreadsheet if you want to start this week.

The benchmark table

Category	Ideal Range	Red Flag Above
Overall bar blend	18 to 24 percent	26 percent
Well liquor	18 to 20 percent	22 percent
Call liquor	20 to 22 percent	24 percent
Premium liquor	22 to 25 percent	27 percent
Top shelf	18 to 28 percent (varies)	30 percent
Draft beer	22 to 24 percent	28 percent
Bottle and can beer	20 to 25 percent	28 percent
Wine by the glass	28 to 32 percent	35 percent
Wine bottle service	25 to 30 percent	35 percent
Craft cocktail program	22 to 28 percent	30 percent
High-volume sports bar	18 to 20 percent	23 percent

What is a good pour cost for liquor?

Liquor should be your strongest category. Here is how it breaks down.

Well liquor: 18 to 20 percent. Well pours are high volume, low cost, and marked up aggressively. A $0.40 shot of well vodka selling for $6 runs around 7 percent. Blend in mixers, garnish, and waste and you land at 18 to 20 percent. Anything above 22 percent on well means you are over-pouring, under-pricing, or both.

Call liquor: 20 to 22 percent. Tito’s, Jack, Bombay, the stuff guests ask for by name. Cost is higher but so is the price ceiling. If you are running over 24 percent on call, check your drink menu pricing first.

Premium liquor: 22 to 25 percent. Don Julio, Woodford, Hendrick’s. Premium spirits carry premium cost. Guests expect to pay more so you still make strong gross profit, but the percentage creeps up.

Top shelf and rare: 18 to 28 percent. This category is all over the place. A $200 bottle of Pappy poured at $45 an ounce runs closer to 15 percent. A backbar of dusty agaves you are trying to move might run 35 percent on purpose. Top shelf is about gross dollars, not percentage.

What is a good pour cost for beer?

Beer is the category where most operators lose money without realizing it.

Draft beer: 22 to 24 percent. Draft has the highest theoretical margin in the whole bar, but real-world numbers rarely match. Foam, line cleaning loss, over-pours, and beer left sitting in warm lines drag the actual number up. A well-run draft program should hit 22 to 24 percent. If you are above 28 percent, you have a shrinkage problem, not a pricing problem.

Bottled and canned beer: 20 to 25 percent. Bottles and cans are portion-controlled by definition. No foam, no over-pouring, no line loss. If this category is above 25 percent, you are under-pricing.

Imports and craft run higher than domestic. A bar that sells 80 percent craft drafts will see a higher blended beer cost than one pouring mostly Bud Light. That is normal.

What is a good pour cost for wine?

Wine is the category where the rules bend the most.

Wine by the glass: 28 to 32 percent. BTG programs run higher because operators price by the glass based on the bottle cost, usually targeting a “bottle cost equals one glass price” rule. That math lands around 30 percent pour cost. Backbar’s wine glass calculator walks through the formula.

Bottle service: 25 to 30 percent. Full bottles get a 3x to 4x markup over wholesale. Higher-end bottles compress the percentage because guests will not pay $400 for a $60 bottle, but they will pay $250.

Wine costs are higher than liquor because the spread between cost and price is narrower. That is the tradeoff. You accept a thinner percentage for a bigger average ticket. A full bottle of wine is almost always more revenue than four cocktails, so the dollars still work.

Why are cocktail bars higher than sports bars?

Because the ingredients cost more and the production is slower.

A craft cocktail uses 2 ounces of a $30 bottle of mezcal, fresh lime juice you squeezed this morning, a house syrup, a dash of bitters, and a dehydrated citrus wheel. The liquid cost is $3.50. You sell it for $14. That is 25 percent pour cost.

A sports bar sells a 16 ounce draft for $6 that cost $1.20 in the keg. That is 20 percent pour cost, and the bartender built it in 8 seconds.

Both numbers are healthy for their category. The cocktail bar makes more gross profit per drink ($10.50 vs $4.80). The sports bar makes more drinks per hour. Neither is wrong.

This is why a blanket “keep pour cost under 20 percent” rule misses the point. A craft program running at 22 to 28 percent is normal. A sports bar running at 22 to 28 percent is bleeding.

What does a 30 percent or higher pour cost usually mean?

If your number is 30 percent or above and you are not running a specialty cocktail program with intentional high-cost ingredients, something is broken. The usual suspects:

1. Over-pouring. Bartenders free-pouring 1.75 ounces when the spec is 1.5. That is 17 percent waste on every drink.
2. Theft. Comped drinks that were never comped. Cash sales that never hit the register. Bottles walking out the back door.
3. Under-pricing. Your menu has not been updated since your last cost increase. Wholesale went up 8 percent last year and your prices did not move.
4. Shrinkage. Breakage, spills, returns, and waste nobody tracks.
5. Bad recipes. The recipe in your POS does not match what your bartenders actually build.

A 30 percent pour cost on a $50,000 monthly beverage program is $5,000 in excess cost every month compared to a 20 percent target. That is $60,000 a year. That is a salary.

What should I do if my pour cost is too high?

Five fixes, in order of impact.

1. Take a real inventory. Not a guess. Count every bottle, tenth every partial, and compare usage to sales. You cannot fix a number you have not measured. Our how to calculate pour cost guide walks through the full process.

2. Audit your recipes. Pull every cocktail in your POS and verify the spec matches what gets built. Watch your bartenders make drinks for a full shift. You will find drift.

3. Re-price your menu. If your costs are up and your prices are not, fix it. Raise the top 10 sellers by $1 and watch your pour cost drop 2 points overnight.

4. Install portion control. Jiggers, measured pourers, or portion-controlled systems. Free pouring is the fastest way to a 28 percent pour cost.

5. Track by category weekly. Break out liquor, beer, and wine separately. Blended numbers hide problems. Weekly tracking catches shrinkage before it compounds.

If you want the math done for you, our pour cost calculator runs the numbers in under a minute.

Track pour cost automatically with PourIQ

Manual pour cost tracking works. It also takes 8 hours a week, requires a spreadsheet nobody updates, and breaks the moment your best bar manager quits.

PourIQ tracks pour cost by category automatically. Count your bottles, ring sales through your POS, and the dashboard shows you exactly where your money is going. Liquor, beer, wine, by brand, by shift, by bartender. No spreadsheets. No hardware. $75 a month, flat.

See how it works or request a demo.

Sources

1. Toast, Average Bar Profit Margin
2. Backbar, Liquor Cost Guide for Bars and Restaurants
3. Sculpture Hospitality, What Is the Average Liquor Cost for a Bar?
4. Backbar, Wine by the Glass Pricing Calculator
5. Toast, Bar Menu Pricing Strategy