---
title: Per-pub pricing for your wholesale beer accounts
Metadescription: Breweries selling direct end up with several keg rates. How to structure them, where state law limits them, and how to keep them private.
author: Dan Edwards
author_role: Founder
author_url: https://danedwardsdeveloper.com
author_linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-edwards-developer
published: 2026-08-26
updated: 2026-09-27
---

Token estimate: ~2,100

# Per-pub pricing for your wholesale beer accounts

A brewery selling its own kegs ends up with three or four rates for the same beer - the free house taking two a week, the small pub group that pushed on volume, the taproom or bottle shop buying cases, and the account still on the rate it was given in year one. Running that means each rate sits on the account itself rather than in a private spreadsheet, so whoever handles the order quotes the same number every time and no customer sees another customer's price. One thing bounds it before anything else - several US states regulate what a brewery may charge a retailer, and California prohibits quantity discounts on beer outright. [How to charge different prices to different wholesale customers](https://wholesalehandler.com/articles/how-to-charge-different-prices-to-different-wholesale-customers) covers the general mechanism.

By **[Dan Edwards](https://wholesalehandler.com/about)**, Founder.

## One trade price is the cheapest thing to run

A single trade price needs no lookup and cannot be misquoted. Every rate added after it is a number somebody has to find before an invoice goes out, and a number a new account will eventually hear about.

The arithmetic is worth doing before the second rate exists. A half barrel of a core beer commonly lists between $140 and $200, a sixth barrel between $70 and $95, with specialty and barrel-aged series above both. A half barrel is 15.5 gallons, which is 124 pours at 16 ounces. So $15 off a half barrel is about twelve cents a pour to the bar - rarely the thing that wins the tap - while to a brewery selling forty kegs a week it is $600 a month.

What justifies the second rate is something the account gives back: kegs committed in advance rather than ordered when a line runs dry, six rooms in a group ordering off one delivery, pallets of cans instead of single cases, or a drop that leaves eight kegs at one stop. Where nothing comes back, the difference is a discount with a story attached to it.

## State law can take per-account pricing off the table

Federal trade practice law under the FAA Act prohibits four things - tied house, exclusive outlet, commercial bribery and consignment sales. Price discrimination is not one of them. States regulate it separately, and they do not agree with each other.

California is the strictest case and the one that catches breweries out. Every beer manufacturer, importer and wholesaler files a price schedule with the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control for each county in which its customers have premises, through ABC's online posting system. The regulation is flat: contract prices for future deliveries of beer and quantity discounts are prohibited. Prices may differ inside a county only across trading areas justified by natural geography - a body of water, a mountain, a desert - and expressly not a road or any other manmade barrier. A self-distributing brewery is filing as its own wholesaler, so this binds it in full. Massachusetts has a statute headed "Discrimination in prices and discounts prohibited". Other states impose nothing at all.

The state lists in circulation are old enough to mislead. Washington deleted its beer and wine posting requirement, Missouri dropped filing with the state, and New York's posting covers spirits and wine rather than beer. The question belongs to the state's own ABC, asked before a second rate is written down. The UK has no posting regime, and trade prices there are set account by account.

## Structuring the rates as named tiers

A rate invented during a phone call is a negotiation. A rate the account is placed on is an assignment, and a new account can be slotted in during the first conversation.

| Rate | What it reflects |
| --- | --- |
| Trade | the standard keg price, and what most accounts pay |
| Volume | kegs committed weekly, or a group ordering for several rooms |
| Package | cases to bottle shops and taprooms, priced per case |
| Legacy | the founding rate, closed to accounts opened since |

Naming the fourth one is the part that gets skipped. A legacy rate with a name is a decision with a date on it; the same rate sitting unlabelled in a spreadsheet becomes a mystery nobody can explain three years later, and an argument when the account next asks for more.

In Wholesale Handler these are named price lists, each customer assigned to one, and a list can be built as a percentage off another with rounding controls rather than as a re-typed set of prices. [What is a wholesale price list](https://wholesalehandler.com/articles/what-is-a-wholesale-price-list) covers the shape of one.

## Raising the price on one account

A general increase is one decision announced once. Moving a single account is the harder version, and it splits into two different jobs.

Changing the price of a beer on a list moves every account on that list. Moving one account off a legacy rate onto the trade list is a reassignment rather than a price update, so the rate itself survives for whoever else is still on it.

Either way the customer meets the change while ordering rather than on the invoice. Wholesale Handler shows a price that changed in the last thirty days with the previous price struck through beside the new one on the order form.

## Keeping the rate where the order is taken

The rate that causes trouble is the one held in the founder's head or in a file on the founder's laptop. Someone else takes a call, quotes the trade price to an account on the volume rate, and the correction lands on the invoice.

Self-service removes the quote entirely. Each customer signs in to their own portal and the order form prices itself from the list assigned to them, so the rate is applied rather than remembered, and nobody is looking at anyone else's. A public storefront, where one is turned on, draws from a separate storefront price list, so the page a drinker finds carries neither the trade rate nor the legacy one. [How small breweries take orders from pubs without a distributor](https://wholesalehandler.com/articles/how-small-breweries-take-orders-from-pubs-without-a-distributor) covers the rest of the order flow that sits around this.

## What a price list does not carry

-   A price is per product per list. A break that triggers on quantity inside one order - five kegs or more at a lower rate - is not something Wholesale Handler does, so a volume tier is a list the account is assigned to.
-   Returnable keg deposits are not tracked as deposits against the account.
-   Nothing is filed with a state regulator. Price postings, where a state requires them, stay a separate job.

Per-customer terms sit beside the price rather than inside it: delivery days, cutoff, lead time, delivery charge and minimum spend are set on an order profile and assigned per customer, so the group with a Tuesday drop and the free house with a $200 minimum can differ without touching either price list.

## Q&A

**Q: Can two bars on the same street pay different prices for the same keg?**
A: It depends on the state. In California quantity discounts on beer are prohibited and the posted county price applies to every retailer, with differences allowed only across trading areas separated by natural geography. In states with no volume discount ban, different rates for different accounts are ordinary commercial practice.

**Q: How many trade rates does a brewery need?**
A: Enough that each one has a reason behind it. A standard trade rate, a volume rate, a package rate for cases, and any legacy rate still in force is where most direct-selling breweries settle.

**Q: Can a wholesale customer see another customer's price?**
A: No. Each customer signs in to their own portal and sees only the prices on the list assigned to them. A public storefront uses a separate storefront price list, so trade rates stay off it.

**Q: Does Wholesale Handler charge per order?**
A: No. It is a flat monthly price, with no per-user charge, no per-order fee and no commission on order value, and free up to 3 customers. There is also a working demo, with no signup and no card.