Pricing
True cost, 20% VAT and why markup is not margin.
For UK restaurants, hotels and bars
Find the money hiding in your wine list
Practical guides and free calculators to price, design and sell wine, with 20% UK VAT built in.
UK hospitality in numbers
3–5p
is roughly what a typical UK restaurant keeps from every pound of sales, once all the bills are paid.
20%
VAT on every glass and bottle. One sixth of the menu price belongs to HMRC.
£5,400
from three points of margin on £180,000 of wine. About 15% of a typical year's profit.
Margins: typical UK industry estimates. VAT: HMRC standard rate.
Your best seller is rarely your best earner
Wine list engineering puts each wine's cash margin in pounds next to how often it sells. One chart, four boxes, one decision per wine.
- Stars High sales, high margin
- Protect them. Never let one run out.
- Ploughhorses High sales, low margin
- Reprice them. Guests already chose them.
- Puzzles Low sales, high margin
- Push them. Better words, better place on the page.
- Dogs Low sales, low margin
- Sell through by the glass, then cut.
Check a price in thirty seconds
Free calculators. Menu prices include 20% VAT, purchase costs exclude it.
All calculators
By the glass margin
Wine cost and margin per glass, with 20% VAT.
Glasses per bottle
How many 125 ml or 175 ml pours a bottle really gives you.
Markup price
From purchase cost and multiplier to menu price.
Bottle margin
VAT split, wine cost and cash margin for any bottle.
Rather not spend the afternoon? Send me your list.
Within two working days you get your true margin line by line, your by-the-glass economics, how each wine fits your menu, and a page of changes you can make yourself.
Free Wine Profit Checkup
Marco Azzari, founder of Wine CFO. I do every Checkup personally, so I take on a few each month.