A guest asks if they can bring their own bottle, and most owners answer with a number they once heard somewhere — not a number they've actually worked out. A corkage fee isn't a favour and it isn't a penalty. It's a price, and like every price on your list it has a floor and a ceiling you can calculate.
"Can I bring my own bottle?" is a question every restaurant with a wine list eventually gets — from the guest saving a special vintage for a birthday, to the collector who'd rather empty their own cellar than read yours. Saying yes or no is easy. Pricing it almost never is.
Most corkage fees come from the same place: whatever the restaurant down the street charges, rounded to a number that sounds about right. That figure says nothing about what it actually costs you to serve that bottle, and nothing about what you give up because it didn't come from your own list — the only two things that actually matter.
This piece works corkage out seven ways: the minimum it has to earn you to cover serving it, the maximum you'd have made if the guest had ordered from your own list, the number in between that respects both, what a bottle really costs the guest in each scenario, what a corkage fee is actually made of, when to waive it, and how to write the policy down so nobody has to explain it at the table.
The worked example below is a restaurant with an average list-bottle price of €37.80, a purchase cost of €10.50, and a current corkage fee of just €2.10. Plug in your own numbers further down — everything runs in your browser, nothing is sent or stored.
Why corkage is almost never priced right
Corkage is rarely calculated because it doesn't look like it has a cost — the bottle didn't come from your own cellar, so what would it cost you to open it? That's the first mistake: every bottle you serve costs you staff time, glassware and attention, whether it came from your list or not.
The second mistake runs the other way: a corkage fee set too high feels like extra profit, but in practice it works like a ban. The moment corkage plus the retail price of the bottle exceeds what the guest would pay ordering from your own list, nobody brings a bottle anymore — and you lose both the fee and the goodwill.
A corkage fee set too low is the mistake that happens most often and gets noticed least: a number that once felt small and generous, that's never been revisited, and that by now covers less than it costs you to serve that bottle. You're then, literally, paying to let someone drink their own wine.
The 7 numbers, and what each one tells you
They run in the order they build on each other: the floor first, then the ceiling, then the number in between — and only after that, how you apply it.
1. The floor: what it actually costs you to serve a stranger's bottle
Every bottle that reaches the table costs you something, list or not: the time to open it, chill or let it breathe, bring the right glasses and top them up, and the wear on that glassware itself. At 6 minutes of work at €18.90 per hour in loaded staff cost, plus €0.80 in glassware, one bottle costs you €2.69 — before anything is earned at all.
That number is your floor, and it isn't negotiable: a corkage fee below it means you're paying to let someone drink their own wine. That's exactly what happens at a fee of €2.10 — it doesn't even cover half of the €2.69 it actually costs.
2. The ceiling: what you'd have earned if the guest had ordered from your list
On the other side sits what you give up: the margin you'd have made if that same guest had ordered a bottle from your own list instead of bringing their own. On an average list-bottle price of €37.80 including 23% VAT, that's €30.73 ex-VAT, minus the €10.50 purchase cost — a margin of €20.23.
Charge exactly that as corkage and, in theory, you've lost nothing. In practice you lose everything: corkage at your own margin level costs the guest exactly as much as ordering from your list, so every reason to bring their own bottle disappears. This ceiling exists to tell you where never to price — not to price toward.
3. One bottle, priced three ways
The reason corkage works for both guest and restaurant becomes obvious once you follow the same bottle through three scenarios. Say the guest has their eye on a bottle that costs €15.80 at a wine shop — one that isn't on your own list, which is often exactly why they're bringing it themselves.
Order it from your own list instead and they pay €37.80, and you earn €20.23. Bring their own bottle and pay the suggested corkage fee of €11.46, and their total comes to €27.26 — cheaper than ordering from your list — while you still earn €8.77, comfortably above what it costs you to serve the bottle.
The same bottle of wine — bought at a wine shop, ordered from your own list, or brought in with a corkage fee. What the guest pays, and what you keep.
Notice that even after paying corkage, the guest still comes out cheaper with their own bottle than ordering from your list — and you keep a real margin either way, not just on your own bottle.
4. The number in between: why the midpoint wins
Between €2.69 and €20.23 sits a whole range of possible fees, and the midpoint is usually the right answer: €11.46. Lower, and you're structurally leaving money on the table with every bottle that walks in. Higher, and you start actively discouraging guests from ever asking.
In practice, corkage typically runs somewhere between roughly €15 and €30 a bottle at an average restaurant, and considerably higher at fine dining — but those are other people's rules of thumb, not a calculation of your own cost and your own list. The midpoint between your own floor and ceiling is always more specific than whatever the restaurant down the street charges.
5. What a corkage fee is actually made of
Corkage feels like pure profit, which is exactly why it's priced wrong so often — too low, out of a sense that it would be "unfair" to profit from it, or too high, out of the same misunderstanding. It's neither: part of it covers your staff time, part covers your glassware, and only what's left is what you actually keep.
At the suggested fee of €11.46, a slice goes to the 6 minutes of service and the glassware itself, leaving €8.77 as real margin. That ratio is exactly why pricing corkage at your floor — covering cost only — costs a restaurant money over time: nothing is left over for the fact that you're serving that table at all.
The suggested corkage fee broken apart: service time, glassware, and only then your real margin.
Set corkage at your floor and the green slice disappears entirely — you'd cover cost only, with nothing left over for the fact that you're serving that table at all.
6. When to waive it — and what that's actually worth
Many restaurants waive corkage the moment a table also orders one or two bottles from the list, or above a minimum spend for a group or private dinner. That isn't a soft spot in your policy; it's a trade: you give up the fee in exchange for an order that earns more than €20.23 a bottle regardless.
Fix that threshold in advance — waived from two list bottles, say, or above a set drinks spend per table — and it becomes a clear rule instead of a negotiation your staff has to have fresh every night.
7. Writing the policy down, so nobody has to explain it
A corkage policy that only lives in the owner's head gets applied differently every night — strict one evening, lenient the next, depending on who's on the floor. Put it in writing on the menu or in the booking confirmation instead: the fee per bottle, a maximum number of bottles per table, and a separate, higher rate for anything beyond that.
State explicitly whether corkage applies to sparkling wine and champagne too — the real cost of serving them is higher, thanks to the glassware and the extra attention at the table, which is why many restaurants deliberately charge more for it than for still wine.
Work out your own corkage fee
Enter your own numbers — your average bottle price, what it costs you, how long serving a bottle takes, and what you currently charge. The calculator instantly shows your floor, your ceiling, the suggested number in between, and what your current fee is costing or earning you over a year.
Everything runs live in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server and nothing is stored — change a guest count or your hourly wage and every number on this page updates instantly.
Corkage fee calculator
Your floor, your ceiling, and the number in between — with your own numbers.
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Rule of thumb: your floor covers your cost, your ceiling is the margin you give up. The suggested fee sits exactly in the middle.
In the worked example above — €37.80 average bottle price, a current corkage fee of just €2.10 — the gap to the suggested €11.46 adds up to roughly €2,434 a year at 5 BYO bottles a week. That isn't rounding error; that's money quietly leaking out with every bottle a guest brings in.
Enter your own numbers and the gap moves with them — a busy restaurant with frequent BYO requests feels a wrong corkage fee harder than one where it happens once a month, but the principle holds for both: work it out before it goes on the menu, not after.
What to do with this, this week
Revisiting corkage isn't a big decision — it's a calculation most restaurants have never actually made. This order works.
Today
- Work out your own floor: serving time × hourly wage, plus a realistic estimate of glassware per bottle.
- Check what you currently charge — many owners don't know it off the top of their head, because it's never been revisited.
- Compare the two: if you're below the floor, you're currently paying to let guests drink their own wine.
This week
- Work out your ceiling from the average margin on a bottle from your own list, ex-VAT.
- Pick the number in between, and round it to something that fits your concept and your list.
- Decide your waiver rule — from how many list bottles, or what spend, corkage drops away.
Before next weekend
- Put the new fee, a maximum bottles-per-table cap and the sparkling-wine rate on the menu or in the booking confirmation.
- Brief your staff so everyone quotes the same number, whoever's on the table.
It's a price, not a favour
Corkage isn't an exception to your pricing — it's a price like any other on your list, with a cost it has to cover and a margin it has to earn. Treat it that way and the question of whether it "feels fair" disappears: it's just a number that adds up.
The floor protects you from losing money on every bottle that comes in. The ceiling protects the reason a guest would ever ask in the first place. The number in between isn't a compromise — it's the only figure that delivers both at once.
Work it out once with your own numbers, put it on the menu, and it's a conversation you'll never have to have at the table again.