For bars, taprooms, and cocktail lounges
Food cost software for bars
Smooth Ops is food cost software built for bars: one back-office app with a Square integration, so every cocktail re-costs itself from the bottle prices on your actual distributor invoices and your sales import automatically. Build a drink once and its pour cost stays current as prices move. Built by operators with 14+ years of operations across 20+ locations. Try it for 30 days free, no credit card.
Why pour cost is hard to hold at a real bar
From the outside a bar looks like a high-margin business, and drink by drink it can be. But pour cost is decided a quarter ounce and a comped round at a time, and the spreadsheet you costed the menu with last year has no idea what happened behind the bar tonight.
- Bottle prices creep across distributor invoices. Most bars buy from two or three liquor distributors plus a broadline supplier, and prices change on different schedules. A $2 increase on the well tequila moves every margarita on the menu, and nobody reads line 14 of a 40-line invoice, which is how price creep compounds.
- Overpour is invisible until you count. A free pour that runs 2.25 oz instead of 2 oz adds about 24 cents of cost to a drink at typical bottle prices. Across a few hundred drinks a week, that is a point or more of pour cost that never shows up on any receipt.
- Every category runs a different pour cost. BevSpot data puts median pour costs at 15% for spirits, 24% for beer, and 28% for wine (BevSpot, as of July 2026), so your blended number depends on what sells, not just how carefully you pour.
- Comps, spills, and shrinkage live off the books. Buybacks, broken bottles, and training pours all consume inventory without ringing a sale, and most bars never reconcile bottles purchased against drinks sold.
- Menus get repriced slower than the rail gets more expensive. A menu reprint is a project, so prices sit still for a year while liquor, juice, and garnish costs move monthly and the margin on every drink quietly narrows.
The pour cost numbers that set your targets
These are the verified benchmarks we watch for bars. Full links are in the sources and notes at the bottom of the page.
18 to 24%
Total average pour cost range for typical bars in the most cited industry dataset, with the median bar sitting just above 20%.
Source: BevSpot, as of July 2026.
18 to 22%
The pour cost target Sculpture Hospitality recommends aiming for, depending on your concept, in its July 2025 liquor cost guide.
Source: Sculpture Hospitality, as of July 2026.
10 to 15%
Improvement in profit margins reported for bars that track their inventory consistently instead of guessing.
Source: Sculpture Hospitality, as of July 2026.
What a $13 margarita actually costs
Here is a full costing for a house margarita with a 2 oz tequila pour. Every line is an example figure, typical 2026 wholesale prices used for illustration, not sourced statistics; the pour cost benchmarks it is measured against are sourced. Start with the bottle math: a 750 ml bottle holds 25.36 fl oz, which is 12.7 perfect 2 oz pours. Call it 12 pours per bottle once you allow for spill and a little overpour, so a $24.00 bottle works out to $2.00 of tequila per drink ($24.00 divided by 12 pours). Your own numbers will differ, which is the point of costing your own drinks.
| Line item | Basis | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Tequila blanco, 2 oz pour | Example figure: $24.00 per 750 ml bottle wholesale, 12 pours of 2 oz per bottle after spill allowance | $2.00 |
| Orange liqueur, 0.75 oz | Example figure: $12.00 per 750 ml bottle, about $0.47 per fl oz | $0.35 |
| Fresh lime juice, 1 fl oz | Example figure: about $0.20 per fl oz juiced in house from limes bought by the case | $0.20 |
| Agave syrup, 0.5 fl oz | Example figure: about $0.20 per fl oz buying by the jug | $0.10 |
| Lime wheel and salt rim | Example figure: about $0.10 per drink | $0.10 |
| Total cost | $2.75 |
At a $13.00 menu price (an example figure for a house margarita at an independent bar), that is a 21.2% pour cost and $10.25 of gross profit per drink, inside the BevSpot 18 to 24% average range and the Sculpture Hospitality 18 to 22% target. Now add a quarter ounce of overpour: at $24.00 a bottle, tequila runs about $0.95 per fl oz, so a 2.25 oz pour adds about 24 cents and takes the same drink to $2.99 and a 23.0% pour cost. Want to run a drink with your own numbers first? The free food cost calculator costs a recipe and suggests a target menu price in a couple of minutes.
Friday night, by the numbers (an illustrative example, not a real customer)
Picture a neighborhood cocktail bar doing 900 drinks a week. The owner starts snapping every distributor invoice into Smooth Ops. In the second week, the well tequila comes in $2.00 higher per bottle and the app flags the line the day the invoice is scanned. Every tequila drink re-costs itself the same afternoon: the house margarita moves from $2.75 to about $2.92, a 22.4% pour cost at the same $13.00 price, and the owner sees it before the weekend instead of at month end.
A monthly bottle count surfaces the second leak: tequila usage runs about 8% ahead of what the drinks rung in Square say it should, which points at overpour and unrecorded comps worth a few thousand dollars a year at current prices. The owner reprices two drinks by 50 cents, retrains the free pour, and makes the count a recurring task. This scenario is illustrative, built from the worked example above, and does not describe a real customer. Ready to see your own numbers? Start now: 30 days free, no credit card.
One app, nine modules, start with one
Smooth Ops is one back-office app with nine modules. Each module is $25 a month per location, everything together is $99 a month per location, and Sourcing comes free with Food Cost and Invoices. Month to month, no contract. Start with one module, add more later. If you run on Square, sales, cash, and inventory import automatically, and the QuickBooks P&L import ties drink margins back to the books. Here is how the modules most bars start with map to the rail.
Food Cost
Build every cocktail once, pours, mixers, and garnish included, and watch its pour cost update as bottle prices move. Details on the Food Cost module page.
Invoices
Snap a photo of every distributor and broadline invoice. The AI reads each line and flags any bottle price that moved since last time. More on the Invoices module page.
Inventory
Count the rail, the back bar, and the walk-in on a schedule that fits a bar, and reconcile bottles purchased against drinks sold to surface overpour and shrinkage. More on the Inventory module page.
Cash
Close out cash-heavy nights from your phone with a drawer count that ties to your Square totals, so the deposit matches the night. More on the Cash module page.
Tips
Pool and split tips across bartenders and barbacks by hours worked, with a clear record everyone behind the bar can check. More on the Tips module page.
On Square?
The Square integration imports sales, cash, and inventory automatically. There is a whole page on food cost software for Square restaurants if that is your setup.
Daytime coffee service in the same room? There is a page on food cost software for coffee shops too, and if you blend as well, one on food cost software for juice bars.
Bar pour cost, answered
What is a good pour cost for a bar?+
Across BevSpot's industry dataset, typical bars run total average pour costs of 18 to 24%, and the median bar sits just above 20% (BevSpot, as of July 2026). Sculpture Hospitality recommends aiming for 18 to 22% depending on your concept (Sculpture Hospitality, as of July 2026). Spirit-forward cocktail bars can run lower, while beer and wine heavy concepts naturally run higher.
How do I calculate pour cost?+
Per drink, divide what the drink costs to make by its menu price: a margarita that costs $2.75 to pour and sells for $13.00 runs a 21.2% pour cost. For the whole bar, divide the cost of the alcohol you used in a period by your beverage sales over the same period. You need both numbers: the per-drink math sets prices, and the bar-wide number catches overpour, comps, and shrinkage.
How many drinks do you get from a 750 ml bottle?+
A 750 ml bottle holds 25.36 fl oz, which is 16.9 perfect pours at 1.5 oz or 12.7 at 2 oz. Call it 16 and 12 once you allow for spill and a little overpour. Dividing the bottle price by realistic pours per bottle, not perfect ones, builds a small waste allowance into every drink cost.
How do I price a cocktail?+
Cost the full drink first: every pour, mixer, and garnish at the prices you actually pay. Then divide by your target pour cost percentage. A drink that costs $2.75 to make prices at $13.75 at a 20% target, or $12.50 at 22%. Round to a price the room will accept, and recheck the math whenever a bottle price moves, not just when you reprint menus.
Why is my pour cost rising even though sales are steady?+
Usually quiet cost creep plus untracked loss: distributor prices rise a bottle at a time, pours drift heavy, and comps go unrecorded while menu prices stay flat. Sculpture Hospitality reports that bars that track inventory consistently see 10 to 15% improvements in profit margins (Sculpture Hospitality, as of July 2026). Scanning every invoice and reconciling bottle counts against sales shows exactly which drinks slipped out of range so you can reprice or retrain the pour.
Sources and notes
Every benchmark on this page comes from the sources below and is reviewed quarterly. Figures in the worked margarita example are example figures, illustrative assumptions rather than sourced statistics, and the Friday night scenario is illustrative, not a real customer. If anything here is out of date, tell us at team@smoothopsapp.com and we will fix it.
- Typical bars run total average pour costs of around 18 to 24%, the median bar sits at a pour cost just above 20%, and median pour costs by category are 15% for spirits, 24% for beer, and 28% for wine. Source: BevSpot, average pour cost in the bar industry, as of July 2026.
- Most industry experts place the average liquor cost for a bar between 18% and 24%, the recommended target is 18 to 22% depending on your concept, and bars that track inventory consistently see 10 to 15% improvements in profit margins. Source: Sculpture Hospitality, what is the average liquor cost for a bar (July 2025), as of July 2026.
- Bottle, mixer, garnish, and menu prices in the worked example and the illustrative scenario are typical assumed costs for 2026, not sourced statistics. Your own invoice prices will differ, which is why Smooth Ops costs drinks from your invoices.
Know your pour cost before Friday night
Start with one module at $25 a month per location. Month to month, no contract.
30 days free, no credit card