Run the three-tier chain in either direction: forward from your FOB cost to a shelf price, or backward from a target shelf price to the FOB you need. Distributor and retailer margins built in — no spreadsheet required.
The wholesale price is the number in the middle of every beverage deal — what the distributor charges the retailer, sitting between your FOB and the shelf. Get it wrong in either direction and the whole chain breaks: too high and the shelf price kills velocity, too low and someone in the chain eats the shortfall. Use the calculator below to run the math both ways.
This handles one SKU at a time. The full Alculator calculator models your entire portfolio — multiple SKUs, pack formats, markets, freight, and excise — and keeps every number in sync as you adjust margins.
In most of the U.S., alcohol moves through a legally mandated three-tier system: the supplier (brewery, winery, distillery, or brand) sells to a licensed distributor, the distributor sells to a licensed retailer, and the retailer sells to the consumer. Each handoff has its own price, and the industry has a name for every one of them.
The wholesale price is the distributor’s sell-in price to the retailer — sometimes called the price to retailer (PTR) or simply the sell-in. When a grocery buyer or bottle shop owner asks “what’s your wholesale on this?” they are asking what a case will cost them from the distributor, not what you charge the distributor. That earlier number is your FOB price — your price per case at your dock, before freight and excise taxes.
FOB — the supplier’s per-case price at their dock. Landed cost — FOB plus freight and excise; what the case actually costs the distributor. Wholesale price — what the distributor charges the retailer (the subject of this page). Shelf price — what the consumer pays. Every pricing conversation in the industry is anchored to one of these four numbers, and confusing them is the fastest way to blow up a deal.
Two things follow from this definition. First, the wholesale price is not something you set directly as a supplier — it emerges from your FOB, the cost of getting product to the distributor’s warehouse, and the margin the distributor takes. You influence it; you don’t dictate it. Second, if you self-distribute, you are the wholesaler: the same math applies, but the distributor margin stays in your pocket in exchange for you doing the delivery, invoicing, and account work yourself.
That is why this calculator asks for margins rather than prices for the middle tiers. Feed it your FOB and your freight and excise per case, and it derives the wholesale price and shelf price the same way a distributor’s pricing desk would.
Wholesale pricing is a chain of four calculations. Each one feeds the next, and each margin is applied against the selling price at that tier, not the cost.
Take a 24-unit case with a $30.00 FOB and $3.00 in freight and excise, using a 30% distributor margin and a 35% retailer margin (the defaults in the calculator above):
A $30 case at your dock becomes a $3.02 single on the shelf. Nothing sinister happened along the way — two tiers each took a working margin, and freight and excise added their share. If $3.02 is the wrong shelf price for your category, the fix is to work the chain backwards, which is exactly what the reverse pricing approach (and the second tab of the calculator) does: start from the shelf price the market will bear, strip out each tier’s margin, and see what FOB the math leaves you.
The single most expensive mistake in wholesale pricing: multiplying cost by (1 + margin) instead of dividing by (1 − margin). A $33.00 landed case “priced at 30%” as $33.00 × 1.30 = $42.90 delivers only a 23.08% margin — because margin is a share of the selling price, not the cost. The correct price is $33.00 ÷ 0.70 = $47.14. On every case, the multiply version silently gives away $4.24.
If the divide-versus-multiply distinction feels slippery, that is the markup-versus-margin problem in disguise — our markup to margin calculator converts between the two and walks through why the same percentage means different dollars depending on the denominator.
Excise taxes vary enormously by state and by category — beer, wine, spirits, RTDs, and hemp beverages are all taxed differently, and freight depends on lane, volume, and season. The $3.00 in the example is a placeholder. Use your actual per-case numbers; on value-priced SKUs, freight and excise can move the shelf price by more than a margin point does.
The margins you plug into the chain are negotiated, but they cluster in well-established ranges. Distributors typically take 25–35% gross margin on landed cost; off-premise retailers take 30–45% on the shelf price. Here is how those ranges break down:
| Tier / Channel | Typical Gross Margin |
|---|---|
| Distributor (overall) | 25–35% |
| Beer (domestic / major) | 25–30% |
| Craft beer | 28–33% |
| Wine | 28–33% |
| Spirits | 20–28% |
| RTD / canned cocktails | 25–30% |
| Hemp / THC beverages | 28–35% |
| Non-alcoholic | 28–35% |
| Off-premise retail (overall) | 30–45% |
| Grocery | 25–35% |
| Convenience | 25–40% |
| Liquor stores | 30–45% |
| Specialty / bottle shops | 35–50% |
| On-premise (bars, restaurants) | 60–80% (up to 85% at hotels) |
A few patterns worth noting. Spirits margins run lower (20–28%) because the dollars per case are high — a distributor can make good money per case at a thinner percentage. Craft, hemp, and non-alcoholic products run higher (28–35%) because they demand more selling effort per case: more education, more hand-selling, slower turns. And emerging categories tend to price toward the top of their range until velocity is proven.
These are planning numbers, not quotes. Your actual margin structure depends on your state, your volume commitments, and what the distributor is doing for the brand. For the full breakdown by category and channel, see the 2026 margin benchmark table on the calculator page, and for the negotiation dynamics behind the distributor number, read our guide to distributor margins.
Wholesale and retail pricing use the same formula but answer different questions, and the difference matters when you are reading a price sheet or negotiating.
The margins compound, they don’t add. A 30% distributor margin and a 35% retailer margin do not add up to a 65% total. Because each margin is taken on that tier’s selling price, the shelf price is landed cost ÷ (0.70 × 0.65) = landed cost ÷ 0.455 — roughly 2.2× the landed cost at the default margins. Suppliers who mentally add the percentages consistently underestimate their shelf price and get surprised in the market.
Each tier margins its own cost basis. The distributor’s 30% is taken on the landed cost; the retailer’s 35% is taken on the wholesale price, which already contains the distributor’s margin. That is why a dollar added to your FOB shows up as roughly $2.20 on the shelf — and why cutting your FOB by a dollar is the most leveraged price move you can make.
The same wholesale price produces very different consumer prices by channel. An off-premise retailer at 35% turns a $47.14 wholesale case into $72.53 on the shelf — about $3.02 a unit. An on-premise account buys the identical case at the identical wholesale price, but margins each serving at 60–80%. At a 70% pour-cost margin, that $1.96 per-unit cost ($47.14 ÷ 24) becomes a $6.55 menu price for the same can. Neither channel is “overcharging” — they carry completely different cost structures — but it is why suppliers quote wholesale, not shelf.
Retailers set their own shelf price. You can publish a suggested retail, but the buyer decides where the product lands. What you actually control is the wholesale price they see and the margin it lets them make at your target shelf. That is why experienced brands negotiate in margin points, not shelf dollars — and why the reverse tab of this calculator starts from the shelf and works down.
Everything above the shelf is priced per case; the shelf is priced per unit or per pack. The bridge between the two is your case format, and it moves the numbers more than most first-time suppliers expect.
Take the worked example’s $72.53 retail case. As a 24-loose-unit case, that is $3.02 a single. Packed as four 6-packs, the same case sells as four $18.13 packs. Packed as six 4-packs — the standard craft and hemp format — it is six $12.09 packs. Same case, same wholesale price, three different shelf presentations and three different psychological price points.
Format also changes the cost side of the chain:
The calculator’s units per case field handles the denominator; your FOB and freight inputs should reflect the specific format. For a full treatment of how formats ripple through pricing — and which formats each channel expects — see our guide to case formats. And when you need to compare several formats side by side, the full Alculator calculator prices every pack format of every SKU in one view.
In the three-tier system, the wholesale price is the distributor’s selling price to licensed retailers — sometimes called the sell-in price or price to retailer (PTR). It sits between the supplier’s FOB price and the retailer’s shelf price. When a retail buyer asks for your wholesale price, they mean the per-case price they would pay the distributor, not your FOB.
First add freight and excise to your FOB to get the landed cost, then divide by (1 − distributor margin).
Wholesale = (FOB + Freight & Excise) ÷ (1 − Distributor Margin)
For example: a $30.00 FOB case plus $3.00 freight and excise is a $33.00 landed cost. At a 30% distributor margin, the wholesale price is $33.00 ÷ 0.70 = $47.14 per case. Always divide by (1 − margin) — never multiply cost by (1 + margin), which produces a markup, not a margin.
Beverage distributors typically take a 25–35% gross margin on their landed cost. By category: beer runs 25–30%, craft beer 28–33%, wine 28–33%, spirits 20–28%, ready-to-drink products 25–30%, and hemp and non-alcoholic beverages 28–35%. The exact number is negotiated and varies by market, volume, and how much work the distributor does to support the brand.
FOB (free on board) is the supplier’s price per case at their dock — it excludes freight, excise taxes, and the distributor’s margin. Wholesale price is what the distributor charges the retailer after landing the product and applying their margin. Two brands with the same FOB can have very different wholesale prices depending on freight lanes, state excise rates, and distributor margin.
Multiply the target shelf price per case by (1 − retailer margin) to get the wholesale price, multiply that by (1 − distributor margin) to get the landed cost, then subtract freight and excise to find the required FOB.
Example at a $3.49 unit target in a 24-pack case: $3.49 × 24 = $83.76 at shelf; × 0.65 = $54.44 wholesale; × 0.70 = $38.11 landed; − $3.00 freight and excise = $35.11 required FOB per case.
Because margin is a percentage of the selling price, not of the cost. Dividing cost by (1 − margin) produces a price where the margin is exactly the stated share of that price. Multiplying by (1 + margin) applies a markup on cost instead and underprices the product.
A $33.00 landed case priced at $33.00 × 1.30 = $42.90 delivers only a 23.08% margin — not the 30% intended. The correct price is $33.00 ÷ 0.70 = $47.14.
The free multi-SKU calculator runs this chain across every SKU, pack format, and market at once.
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