Mug club ROI calculator
Most mug club calculators can only say yes. This one compares your program against having no program at all — so it can tell you when the perks are rewarding visits you were getting anyway, and when the club is losing money.
Verdict
This club pays for itself: $10,828.80 a year more than these members would make you without it.
Each visit it creates costs you $8.00. It stops paying below 0.17 extra visits per member per month — you've assumed 0.50, so that's the number to be honest about.
$10,828.80
Net program contribution
$90.24 per member, per year
$9,000.00
Fee revenue
Per year
$14,760.00
Perks & glassware
$11,520.00 in drinks at menu price
$8.00
Cost per visit it creates
Perks minus fees ÷ new visits
0.17
Breakeven extra visits
Per member, per month
80.0%
Perks on visits you had anyway
Of every perk dollar
The answer depends on one guess
The same program, if the club creates more or fewer visits than you assumed.
| Extra visits / member / mo | Net contribution / yr | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| 0.00 | -$5,760.00 | Losing money |
| 0.25 | $2,534.40 | Pays for itself |
| 0.50You | $10,828.80 | Pays for itself |
| 1.00 | $27,417.60 | Pays for itself |
| 2.00 | $60,595.20 | Pays for itself |
How it works
Why most mug club math flatters the club
The usual calculation goes: dues in, cost of mugs and perks out, and the difference is profit. It almost always comes out positive, because it quietly assumes that everything members spend is money the club earned.
It isn't. Most people who join a mug club were already regulars — that's why they joined. The pints they order on the visits they'd have made anyway aren't new revenue, and the discount on those pints is money you used to collect and now don't. A calculator that leaves that out isn't measuring the club. It's measuring your regulars.
So this one runs two versions of the same year. In the first, the club exists: you collect dues, every member visit gets its discount and free pours, and you pay for the mugs and the merch. In the second, there's no club: the same people make only the visits they would have made anyway, at full price, with nothing given away. Net program contribution is the gap between the two. It is the only number that answers the question “is the club worth it?” — and it is allowed to be negative.
Everything turns on incremental visits
Take the example loaded into the calculator: 120 members on a $75 annual fee, a 10% discount, a $12 mug and $15 of merch, visiting two and a half times a month with a $32 check. If the club creates half an extra visit a month per member, it earns about $10,800 a year more than those members would have made you without it, and each visit it creates costs you $8.
Change that one input to zero and the same club loses $5,760 a year. Nothing else moved. The fee, the perks and the members are identical — the only difference is whether the discount is buying new visits or rewarding old ones.
That's why the calculator doesn't let you hide behind a single guess. The table under the results shows the verdict at several incremental-visit rates side by side, and the breakeven figure tells you the smallest number of extra visits per member, per month, the club needs to create. If you have no idea what the real number is, start at zero and ask whether you honestly believe the club clears the breakeven line.
What each number means
- Fee revenue
- Dues across every member, annualised — a six-month term counts twice a year.
- Perks & glassware
- The menu value of every discount and free pour handed out across a year of member visits, plus the cost of mugs and merch. It shows what you're giving away, at the prices your customers see.
- Net program contribution
- Profit with the club minus profit without it. A discount on a visit that would have happened anyway is charged at full menu value, because that's revenue you lose. A free pour is charged at the cost of the beer, because that's what pouring it costs you — the same liquid-cost pricing the mug club guide recommends for designing perks.
- Cost per visit it creates
- Perks minus fees, divided by the visits the club actually created. It's the price of acquiring a visit through the club, and the easiest number to compare against any other way you might bring people through the door.
- Perks on visits you had anyway
- The share of every perk dollar that lands on a visit that would have happened without the club. When it's high, the program is mostly a discount for existing regulars.
Where mug club numbers usually go wrong
Counting all member spend as club revenue
Your members were probably regulars before they joined. Their spend on those existing visits would have arrived with or without a club, so it can't be credited to the program. Only the visits the club creates are new money.
Forgetting the bigger pour is a discount
A 20 oz pour at the 16 oz price is a 20% discount on price per ounce. Because no money changes hands at the bar it rarely shows up in anyone's math — but it comes out of every keg a member drinks from.
Paying for glassware once and forgetting it
Mugs break, members lapse and new members need new mugs. If you replace or reissue glassware each term, it's a recurring cost of the program, not a launch expense.
Judging the club at renewal
By the time dues come up for renewal, the year's discounts are already spent. Tag members in your POS from day one so you can count their visits, and check the cohort well before renewal while there's still time to change the perks.
The number you're guessing is one your POS already has
Incremental visits is a guess here because most breweries have never measured it. But if members are tagged in your POS, the data is sitting in your transaction history: how often each member came in before they joined, and how often after.
The complete mug club guide covers how to set a club up so that number is countable, and the mug club software roundup covers which tools can report it. The calculator above works either way.
Mug club ROI FAQ
More free tools
A perk is only as expensive as the beer behind it. The keg margin calculator works out your cost per pour — the number to use when you're deciding what a free pour or a bigger mug really costs. And if the real question is whether first-timers come back at all, the second-visit rate self-assessment works that out from your own counts. Or see all free tools.