Corkage vs. Open Bar: The 6-Number Math Before You Book

Two couples booked the same venue in the same month. One picked the venue's open bar package. The other brought their own wine and paid a corkage fee. Both had 90 guests. Both thought they'd made the obvious money-smart choice. Only one of them actually ran the numbers, and it wasn't the couple who "saved money" with corkage.

That's the thing about the bar line on your quote. Open bar sounds simple until you see the per-head price. Corkage sounds cheap until you forget the bartender, the bottles, and the fee per cork. Neither option wins automatically. It entirely depends on your guest count and your venue's fine print.

So before you initial that contract, here are the six numbers that actually settle it, plus the math nobody does before booking.

the two options, in plain numbers

Let's define what you're really comparing, because the sticker price hides most of the cost on both sides.

Open bar averages $85 to $100 per guest, all in. "All in" is the important part. That number usually bundles the liquor, wine, beer, mixers, bartenders, glassware, and the venue's markup into one per-head figure. It's clean. You know your ceiling. You also pay for every guest whether they drink four cocktails or one club soda.

Corkage is the fee your venue charges to serve alcohol you bought elsewhere. It runs $15 to $35 per bottle, and sometimes it's charged per person instead of per bottle (read that line twice). Corkage looks like the budget hero because the number is small. But corkage is only one line in a stack of costs. You still have to buy the wine at retail, hire the people to pour it, and rent anything the venue doesn't throw in.

The mistake is comparing "$90 a head" against "$20 corkage" as if those are the same kind of number. They're not. One is a total. The other is a fragment.

the bottle math nobody does

Here's where the corkage side gets real. If you're bringing your own wine, you need to know how much wine actually disappears at a wedding.

The working rule: 100 guests need roughly 40 to 50 bottles of wine for a standard reception. That assumes about half a bottle per adult across a cocktail hour and dinner, which is conservative once toasts and a long dance floor enter the picture. Scale it to your count:

1. 60 guests: about 24 to 30 bottles
2. 80 guests: about 32 to 40 bottles
3. 100 guests: about 40 to 50 bottles
4. 120 guests: about 48 to 60 bottles

And that's wine only. For 100 guests you're opening 40 to 50 bottles before spirits even enter the conversation. If your crowd wants cocktails, you're now sourcing liquor, mixers, garnishes, and ice on top of the wine, and your tidy corkage plan starts looking a lot more like running a small bar business for one night.

the true cost per head on corkage

Now stack it. Say you buy solid retail wine at $18 a bottle and your venue charges $25 corkage per bottle. For 100 guests at 45 bottles:

• Wine: 45 bottles x $18 = $810
• Corkage: 45 bottles x $25 = $1,125
• Running total: $1,935, or about $19 a head so far

That's genuinely good. Retail plus corkage can still land under $40 a head even after you add beer and a couple of spirit options. That's the whole appeal of the corkage route, and when it works, it really works. But notice we haven't paid anyone to pour yet.

the number everyone forgets: bartenders

This is the line that quietly eats the corkage savings. Someone has to actually serve all that wine, and it isn't free.

Plan on $200 to $350 per bartender, per 50 guests. So 100 guests means two bartenders, roughly $400 to $700 added to your corkage math. For 150 guests, three bartenders. Some venues require a minimum staff ratio in the contract whether you like it or not, and some won't let outside bartenders on site at all, which forces you back into their pricing.

Back to our 100-guest example:

• Wine plus corkage: $1,935
• Two bartenders: $400 to $700
• New total: $2,335 to $2,635, or about $23 to $26 a head, wine and service only

Add a keg or two of beer and a limited spirit selection and you can drift toward the mid-$30s per head. Still under open bar's $85 to $100. At 100 guests, corkage often does win. But the gap is narrower than the raw corkage fee made it look, and it narrows further every time your guest count climbs, because more guests means more bottles and more bartenders on the corkage side, while open bar's per-head price stays flat.

the rule that actually holds up

Run this math across a bunch of guest counts and a pattern shows up that's reliable enough to plan around:

Corkage tends to win under 80 guests. Open bar tends to win over 120. The middle is where you need to do the math line by line.

Under 80 guests, you're opening fewer than 40 bottles and you likely need only one or two bartenders. The fixed costs stay small, so retail-plus-corkage stays cheap per head and open bar's premium isn't worth it.

Over 120 guests, the bottle count and staffing pile up fast, the logistics of buying, transporting, chilling, and returning unopened bottles become a real job, and open bar's flat per-head number starts to look like a bargain for the convenience alone.

Between 80 and 120, it's a genuine coin toss that only your actual numbers can settle. That's exactly the range where couples pick the "obviously cheaper" option and get it wrong. This is the moment to do it line by line, which is what the budgeting side of planning is really for.

red flags to watch for in the fine print

The math above assumes the contract cooperates. Often it doesn't. Before you commit to either route, hunt for these in the quote:

1. Corkage charged per person, not per bottle. A $20-per-person corkage on 100 guests is $2,000 flat, which quietly erases most of your savings. This is the single most common trap.
2. A "no outside alcohol" clause. Some venues ban corkage entirely, which means the decision is already made and you should stop comparing.
3. Mandatory in-house bartenders. If you can't bring your own staff, you pay the venue's rate, and it's rarely the $200 to $350 range.
4. Unopened-bottle rules. Some venues open every bottle you bring and charge corkage on all of them whether they're poured or not. Ask if you're charged on bottles opened or bottles brought.
5. Service charge and gratuity stacked on top. An 18 to 22 percent service charge applies to bar totals too, and it's often calculated on the pre-tax number in a way that inflates the final bill.
6. Guest-count minimums on open bar packages. Some packages bill you for a floor of, say, 100 guests even if 85 show up.

Any single one of these can flip which option wins. Read the bar section of your contract as carefully as the venue rental section, because that's where the money actually moves. If contracts make your eyes glaze over, our notes on contracts walk through what to flag before you sign.

a quick worked comparison at 90 guests

Remember the two couples from the top. Here's roughly what separated them at 90 guests.

The open-bar couple: 90 x $90 = $8,100, all in, one number, done.

The corkage couple, if they did it right: about 40 bottles of wine at $18 ($720), corkage at $25 a bottle ($1,000), two bartenders ($500), plus beer and a couple of spirits (call it $1,500 all together). Total around $3,720, or about $41 a head. Corkage wins, and it isn't close.

But swap in a per-person corkage of $20 instead of per bottle, and that $1,000 line becomes $1,800, plus a mandatory in-house bartender upcharge, and suddenly the "cheap" route is creeping toward $6,000. Still cheaper, but the couple who assumed corkage always wins would have been shocked at the invoice. The math is what makes it safe.

the short version

Here's what to actually do before you book:

• Get both numbers as totals, not fragments. Open bar's $85 to $100 per guest versus corkage plus wine plus bartenders plus fees, everything included.
• Do the bottle math. Budget 40 to 50 bottles per 100 guests for wine, then add spirits separately if you want cocktails.
• Add the bartenders. $200 to $350 per bartender, per 50 guests, on the corkage side. Don't skip this line.
• Use the rule as your starting point. Corkage under 80 guests, open bar over 120, real math in the middle.
• Read the fine print for the six red flags, especially per-person corkage and mandatory in-house staff.
• Run your actual guest count, because averages settle arguments, not invoices.

Save this for your venue walkthrough and send it to anyone currently comparing quotes. When you're ready to see which option wins for your specific guest count and your specific venue's fine print, get started and run the numbers before you sign, not after.