Open Bar Costs

It would be really hard to give any kind of guesstimate if they are billing you based on consumption. It would depend on the cost of drinks at the venue, how much your guests drink, and what they end up ordering (sometimes beer drinkers become liquor drinkers when they are not footing the tab!) it might be advantageous of you to ask your venue if they have a set price for open bar for a particular amount of time. All the restaurants we inquired with for our rehearsal dinner had this option available. It makes it much easier to budget

Unfortunately, it is hard to estimate how much you will be spending because a bunch of different variables to take into consideration.

Consumption bars are based on the prices of drinks at that location. You should be able to guesstimate based on the restaurants drink prices. The general rule of thumb is 2 drinks per person per hour.

I will say consumption bars tend to be more expensive than a regular open bar.

It's hard to say without knowing how much your venue charges per drink, and if you will allow guests to choose any drink from the menu (i.e. fancy cocktails) or if you're offering a limited selection. Consumption bars usually tend to be pricier than regular open bars. My cousin had a consumption bar at her rehearsal dinner for 50 guests and the tab ended up being around $5000. Our open bar at our wedding was just under $8000 for 110 drinking guests, but it was priced per person and wasn't a consumption bar. I'd talk to your venue to get a better sense of the cost per drink, which should help you come up with an estimate

This will depend entirely on the venue , but you may be able to get a rough estimate with a little math. Like one pp said, most party planning sites suggest to plan for 2 drinks per hour...but you know your guests better than anyone! We knew we had more heavy drinkers than light drinkers so we better prepare for more than that!
Your venue should be able to provide you with a list of costs, what they charge for each beverage — beer/wine/mixed drinks each, so use those numbers x 2 (for “average drinking crowd”) x #hours of your event. Always safer to round up then down so if there’s a “surprise” it’s a pleasant one . Our open bar was such that we brought in all the liquor ourselves, so we really took the time to study our guestlist and try to guess what each person was likely to drink to better anticipate our needs. You can try the same to guess # wine drinkers , # beer drinkers, # toss up/mystery drinkers , hah— and those id group in with liquor/mixed drink drinkers, presuming those are most expensive , just in case ! Every venue will set their own beverage prices so it’s hard to guess the math, but that’s info they should provide you with.
You should also be able to work with your venue to curate your beverage list, to avoid super expensive options (if they have wines for anywhere from $6 to $13 a glass, you can see if they’ll only offer those options under $10 / etc)

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Thanks! These numbers are very helpful. And we do have a few heavy drinkers in the crowd! lol

Ours is 28 per person flat fee. Full Open bar for the entire evening.
Example: 80 person count for open bar will be $2240. Tax and service fees not included.

If it helps- our open beer & wine only bar in greater Boston will be around $40/person including taxes/fees. This price is for 4.5 hours between cocktail hour and reception.