Kegnotes

Calculator

Is a kegerator worth it? The cost-per-pint math.

Plug in how much you drink and what your local pub charges. Out comes annual savings, the year a kegerator pays for itself, and the per-pint cost at home.

Your drinking
Your kegerator costs

How the calculation works

We sum your annual home-draught cost (kegs + CO2) and divide by your annual pint count to get cost per pint at home. We compare that to the pub price multiplied by the same pint count to get annual savings. We then divide the kegerator's one-time cost by annual savings to get break-even years.

The five-year net adds it up: (annual savings × 5) − kegerator cost. Positive means the kegerator pays for itself with money to spare. Negative means you're paying for the experience, not the savings, and that's a fine reason to own one too.

What this calculation doesn't capture

  • Your time. Setup, cleaning, line maintenance, and trips to the welding supply.
  • The convenience tax. Beer at home, on demand, on a Tuesday, is worth something.
  • The hosting upside. The same kegerator that pours your Tuesday pint hosts a 15-person party once a quarter. The math gets dramatically better when guests chip in.
  • Beer quality. Cellar-cold draught at home often beats the warm pub keg that's been on for three weeks.

When the math says yes but you should still pass

If you drink 2 pints a month, no calculator math justifies $700 of equipment. Buy a six-pack. If you live somewhere with $4 happy-hour pints, the math is dramatically harder to make work, but the convenience may still tip it. If you rent, factor in moving costs and whether your next place has space for a 20-gallon appliance.

The hosting angle (this is where it gets interesting)

The calculator assumes you drink every pint yourself. In reality, most kegerator owners host. Once you've got a half-barrel sitting in your kitchen, four friends over for the football changes the math in your favour: each guest who chips in $10 toward the keg cuts your per-pint cost. The unfairness problem (Dave drinks 8, Sarah drinks 2, even split) is solvable with a per-drink tracking system.

Related reading

For the gear side of the decision: 5 lb vs 10 lb vs 20 lb CO2 tank and buying guides. For the hosting side: hosting a kegerator party for 15 mates.

People also ask

How many pints per week make a kegerator worth it?

If you drink fewer than 5 pints per week at home, the math is hard to make work in dollars alone. At 8+ pints/week, the break-even comes inside 18-24 months for typical setups. Above 12 pints/week, almost any reasonable equipment choice pays back inside a year.

Does the ROI math change if I host parties?

Significantly. Each hosted party where guests chip in flips the cost-per-pour math in your favour. Three 15-person parties a year with $10/head chip-ins is roughly $450 of cost recovery on top of your personal consumption savings.

What's the typical break-even for a $700 kegerator?

For a 10-pint-per-week drinker buying $7 pub pints: about 14 months. The faster you drink, the faster it pays back. The cheaper your local pub pints, the slower.

Is it cheaper to buy a kegerator or just drink at the pub?

Depends entirely on pour rate and pub price. The calculator above gives you a personalised answer in 30 seconds. The honest truth: kegerators almost always win on price-per-pint for moderate-to-heavy at-home drinkers; the pub wins on social experience, atmosphere, and not having to clean lines.

Should I include time costs in the kegerator math?

You can but most people don't. Maintenance is 1-2 hours per month (line cleaning, CO2 swaps, occasional troubleshooting). If you value your hobby time at $0, ignore it. If you value it at $30/hour, that's $360-720/year that should subtract from your savings calculation.

Does this calculator handle homebrew kegs differently?

Not directly — set 'cost per keg' to your actual ingredient cost (typically $40-80 for 5 gallons) and 'pints per keg' to ~40. The math then reflects homebrew economics, which produce dramatically lower cost-per-pour but with significant time investment in brewing.

Sources & references

Claims in this article cross-check against the following. We link out so you can verify.

  1. Half-Barrel & Sixth-Barrel Keg Yields — KegWorks reference
  2. CO2 Refill Cost Data — Airgas manufacturer
  3. Average US Beer Prices: BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — US Bureau of Labor Statistics research
  4. Kegerator Buyer's Guide — Kegerators.com reference
  5. DrinkCountr customer cost-recovery patterns — DrinkCountr research