Why pour cost is the most important number in draft beer

Pour cost — the percentage of your retail price that goes toward the cost of the beer itself — is the single clearest measure of draft profitability. If your pour cost is 28%, for every dollar a customer spends on a pint, 28 cents covers the beer and 72 cents goes to everything else (labor, rent, glassware, utilities, and profit). The lower the pour cost, the healthier the business.

The calculator above works in four straightforward steps:

• Total ounces in the keg: Fixed by keg size (1,984 oz for a half barrel, 992 oz for a pony keg, etc.).
• Usable ounces after waste: Your keg never pours 100% — foam, spillage, and line loss eat into the total. Industry average is 18–25% waste. The calculator subtracts your waste percentage from the total.
• Pours per keg: Usable ounces divided by your pour size.
• Cost per pour: Keg purchase price divided by the number of usable pours.

What the retail price table tells you

The results table shows suggested retail prices for five common pour-cost targets (20%, 25%, 28%, 30%, and 33%). These targets are benchmarks:

• 20–25%: Excellent pour cost, typical of well-run bars buying in volume or serving premium-priced beers.
• 25–30%: Standard range for most bars and restaurants — healthy, sustainable margins.
• 30–33%: Acceptable but thin — you're making less per pint, so volume needs to compensate. Common in competitive markets or for high-cost draft products.
• Above 33%: Your margins are under pressure. Look at reducing keg price (volume buying), cutting waste, or adjusting retail price upward.

Worked example: pricing a keg of IPA

How to reduce pour cost without raising prices

Before you raise retail prices, look at these levers:

• Reduce foam waste. A properly balanced draft system with clean lines, correct CO2 pressure, and cold glassware can cut waste from 20% to 12–15%. That alone improves pour cost by 6–10%.
• Switch to 14 oz glassware. Moving from 16 oz to 14 oz pours gives you more servings per keg without changing your pour cost percentage — and most customers won't notice the difference in a tulip or nonic pint glass.
• Buy kegs in volume. If you're paying retail per keg, negotiating a volume discount or bulk-pricing contract can drop your per-keg cost by 10–15%.
• Track actual waste by keg. Use a keg weight scale to compare calculated pours vs actual. If you're losing more than expected, check your draft system balance, line cleanliness, and faucet condition.

For a deeper dive into draft beer margins, try the Draft Beer Profit Margin Calculator — it factors in glassware cost, CO2 expense, and labor for a complete per-pint P&L picture.