Every formula, and what it leaves out.

Pour cost is the single number most bar owners are judged on. It is the liquor cost of a drink divided by what you sell it for. Enter what you pay for the bottle and what you charge for the drink.

• This is liquor cost only. It does not include mixers, garnish, ice, labour, or breakage.
• Drinks per bottle is rounded down and assumes no over-pouring or spillage. Real bars lose product to both.

Open the pour cost calculator

Kegs are sold by volume but poured by glass, and foam eats the difference. Enter what the keg costs and what you pour, and this gives you real pints and real cost per pint.

• Keg volumes are exact conversions of the nominal barrel and metric sizes. Actual fill can vary slightly by brewery.
• Enter the beer that reaches the glass, not the glass capacity. A 16 oz shaker glass poured with a proper head delivers closer to 14 oz.

Open the draft & kegs calculator

Pour cost on the base spirit hides modifiers, juice, and syrup. Enter the full build and see what the drink really costs. Container size is in millilitres, which is what the label says.

• Keep container size and amount used in the same unit. The default rows use millilitres throughout; 1 oz is 29.57 ml.
• Labour is not included. A drink with a three-minute build costs more than this number says.

Open the cocktail cost calculator

Cost a recipe from your invoices. Enter each ingredient as the pack you buy and the amount the recipe uses. Keep the units consistent within a row; the calculator does not care whether that unit is pounds, ounces, or each.

• Pack size and amount used must share a unit within a row. Mixing pounds and ounces in one row will give a wrong answer.
• Food cost percentage does not tell you which dishes make the most money. A high-cost steak can out-earn a low-cost pasta on gross profit per plate.

Open the plate cost calculator

Prime cost is cost of goods sold plus all labour, divided by sales. It is the number most operators are measured on because it covers the two costs you can still change this week. Take these figures straight off one period's P&L.

• Use the same period for every figure. Mixing a monthly P&L with a weekly payroll run produces a meaningless ratio.
• Use net sales excluding sales tax. Including tax inflates the denominator and flatters the result.

Open the prime cost calculator

Labour percentage tells you what labour costs relative to sales. Sales per labour hour tells you what each scheduled hour returns. Watching only the percentage hides a slow shift that was staffed correctly for a busy one.

• Labour percentage and sales per labour hour move in opposite directions on a slow night. Read them together.
• State whether your labour cost includes payroll burden and keep that choice consistent between periods.

Open the labour & splh calculator

The wage on the offer letter is not what the position costs. Employer payroll taxes, workers' compensation, and benefits sit on top of it. Enter the wage and the rates you actually pay.

• Payroll tax rates vary by state and by your unemployment experience rating. Use the effective rate from your payroll provider, not a national average.
• This is not tax or employment-law advice. Tip credits, overtime rules, and benefit mandates differ by state.

Open the employee cost calculator

Overtime feels cheaper than hiring because you do not see a new name on the schedule. Enter the hours you are actually paying at premium and compare.

• Federal law requires time and a half above 40 hours in a workweek. Several states add daily overtime thresholds or double time. Check your state.
• This is not employment-law advice. Overtime exemptions and tip-credit interactions are fact specific.

Open the overtime calculator

Split your costs into the ones that move with sales and the ones that arrive whether you open or not. Break-even is the sales figure where what is left over from the first group exactly covers the second.

• Salaried management belongs in fixed costs, not variable labour. Putting it in the wrong bucket moves break-even substantially.
• This is a monthly model. A venue with heavy seasonality should run it against a realistic month, not an annual average.

Open the break-even calculator

A promotion earns back its cost through the margin on incremental guests, not through the headcount. Enter what the night costs you and what a guest is worth after variable costs.

• Count only incremental guests. Regulars who would have come anyway reduce the return rather than building it.
• Include only costs you avoid by cancelling. Rent and salaried management are already paid whether the promotion runs or not.

Open the promotion calculator

Rent is only affordable relative to sales. Occupancy cost bundles everything you pay to be in the building and expresses it against revenue, which is how landlords, lenders, and buyers read it.

• Occupancy cost is a ratio, so it improves with volume as well as with a lower rent. A rent that is affordable in December can be unaffordable in February.
• The 8% and 10% reference lines are arithmetic conversions of your own numbers, not a claim about what your market considers acceptable.

Open the occupancy calculator

Profit and cash are different questions. This one is cash: what you have, what comes in, what goes out, and how long that lasts.

• This is a straight-line model. It does not know about a quarterly tax payment, a seasonal dip, or a supplier tightening terms.
• Set aside sales tax and payroll tax as cash out even though you have collected it. It is not yours to spend.

Open the cash runway calculator

Average check rewards big spenders. Covers reward volume. RevPASH is the measure that catches both at once, because it divides revenue by the seat-hours you actually had available to sell. It comes out of the Cornell School of Hotel Administration's revenue-management work.

• Count seats you genuinely had in service. Including a closed patio understates RevPASH and hides the real result.
• There is no universal target. RevPASH is a comparison metric: this Friday against last Friday, this room against that room.

Open the revpash calculator

Before you spend on marketing, find out whether the room can even seat the guests you are trying to attract. Turn time is the whole cycle: seated, served, paid, cleared, reset.

• Real utilisation well below 100% is normal and not a failure. Party size mismatch alone costs most rooms a meaningful share of their seats.
• Cutting turn time raises the ceiling but can cut average check. Test both together before pushing service faster.

Open the turns & capacity calculator

Door revenue rarely lands where the flyer suggests. Ticketing fees come off the top, the promoter takes a share, and security is a real cost of opening the door at all. Enter the deal as it is actually structured.

• Comps are not free. They occupy capacity, need staffing, and consume product; they simply pay nothing at the door.
• Read the promoter agreement carefully. Some splits are calculated on gross door before fees, which changes this materially.

Open the door & cover calculator

Theoretical cost is what your recipes say you should have used. Actual usage is what the count says you did use. The difference is over-pouring, spillage, comps you did not ring in, breakage, or theft, and it has a dollar value.

• Count the same items in the same way each period. Most surprising variances are counting errors, not theft.
• Open bottles need a consistent method, whether that is tenths, weighing, or a measuring stick. Changing method mid-year makes the trend meaningless.

Open the variance calculator

Par level covers usage between deliveries plus the lead time to get more plus a cushion for a busy week. Below that you run out; well above it you have cash sitting on a shelf.

• Average daily usage hides the weekend. For a venue where Friday and Saturday carry the week, set par against peak usage rather than the average, or you will run dry at 11pm.
• Par levels need resetting when the menu, the season, or a promotion changes what sells.

Open the par & reorder calculator

Slow turns mean cash sitting still and product ageing. Fast turns mean tight cash use but more risk of running out. This tells you which side you are on.

• A single blended figure across beer, wine, spirits, and food is hard to act on. Category-level turns tell you where the cash actually is.
• Two count dates make a rough average. If your inventory swings hard mid-period, this understates the variation.

Open the turnover calculator

Most tip disputes are arithmetic disputes. Enter the pool and the team, choose whether you split by hours worked or by role points, and every share is shown with the fraction it came from.

• Federal law bars employers, managers, and supervisors from keeping any part of an employee's tips. Including back-of-house in a pool is only permitted where no tip credit is taken.
• Several states prohibit the tip credit entirely or restrict who may be in a pool. Check your state, and put your policy in writing.
• This tool divides a number. It does not determine whether your pool complies with the law.

Open the tip pool calculator

A buyout replaces a normal night, so it has to beat one. Enter what the room usually makes and what the event costs you, and this gives you the minimum spend to quote.

• If the space would otherwise be closed, set the normal night contribution to zero. Charging a replacement value for a night you would not have opened prices you out of business you could have had.
• Deposit and cancellation terms matter as much as the minimum. A booked Thursday that cancels on Wednesday is worse than no booking at all.

Open the event minimum calculator

Staff to the covers you expect and the section size you can actually serve, then check the labour cost that schedule implies before you post it.

• Front of house only. Kitchen labour, payroll burden, and salaried management are not included, so the real labour percentage is higher.
• Servers in tip-credit states are often paid a lower cash wage. Use the cash wage you actually pay, and remember the tip credit does not reduce your payroll tax base.

Open the staffing calculator