Pour Cost & Shrinkage
Calculator

How do you calculate pour cost percentage?

The formula is straightforward. Divide the cost of the liquor poured by the price you sold it for, then multiply by 100. A 1.5 ounce pour of Tito's that cost you $0.90 at the bottle and sold for $9 is a 10 percent pour cost. Toast's bar profit margin data pegs healthy benchmarks around 18 to 22 percent across a full bar program.

What is a good pour cost for a bar?

Target pour costs vary by category. Well liquor runs 18 to 20 percent. Call and premium liquor sits at 20 to 22 percent. Draft beer is usually 22 to 24 percent. Wine by the glass often runs 28 to 32 percent, per Backbar's category benchmarks. Anything consistently above these ranges points to over-pouring, under-pricing, or shrinkage.

Why is my pour cost higher than the benchmark?

Five things drive pour cost up: bartenders free-pouring instead of using jiggers, comps that never get logged, untracked spillage and breakage, menu prices that have not moved while cost of goods climbed, and shrinkage that inventory counts are missing. A pour cost calculator surfaces the gap between what you should be losing and what you actually are.

How can I reduce pour cost without raising prices?

Switch to jiggered pours, run weekly variance reports to catch outliers early, train bartenders on the pour cost of each product they sell, use menu engineering to push high-margin drinks, and tighten keg and BTG wine tracking. Bars that start measuring variance weekly typically see a 3 to 5 point pour cost reduction within 90 days.

Run the calculator above with your actual numbers. Then try the free PourIQ demo to see how it tracks pour cost and variance automatically.