See the mark-up behind curated wine.

Wine subscriptions promise curation, variety, and convenience. What they rarely promise is the best price - because they can't, at 20-40% margins on the wholesale price. This calculator puts numbers on the mark-up by comparing per-bottle subscription cost to what you'd pay at retail for an equivalent bottle.

A typical 90 monthly subscription delivering six bottles works out to 15 a bottle. Equivalent retail bottles (same region, grape, vintage, quality tier) often sell for 10-12. That's a 3-5 mark-up, or 36-60 a year, or 180-300 over five years. The trade-off buys curation and discovery - whether that's worth the premium is a personal call.

The calculator doesn't judge. It just shows the numbers. If the premium looks worth it, the subscription makes sense. If it looks steep, buying from the same retailer directly or joining a wine club with lower margins recovers most of the gap.

Quick example

With subscription monthly cost of 90 and bottles per month of 6 (plus retail equivalent per bottle of 12 and time horizon of 5), the result is 1,080.00. Change any figure and watch the output shift — it's often more useful to see the pattern than to memorise the formula.

Which inputs matter most

You enter Subscription Monthly Cost, Bottles per Month, Retail Equivalent per Bottle, and Time Horizon. Frequency and unit price pull the total in different directions. The biggest surprise for most people is how small recurring amounts compound into large annual figures — that's where this calculation earns its keep.

What's happening under the hood

Monthly premium = subscription cost minus (bottles × retail equivalent). Annual premium = monthly × 12. Total = annual × years. The formula is listed in full below. If the number looks off, you can retrace the calculation by hand — that's the point of showing the working.

Why a budget needs to be specific

Budgets fail when they're built from ideals instead of actuals. Track what you actually spend for a month before fixing the plan — categories like "eating out" and "subscriptions" are reliably 30–50% higher than people's first estimate.

What this doesn't capture

Budgets are snapshots of intent. Real spending includes irregular costs: birthdays, one-off repairs, the occasional bad week. Tracking actual spending for a month before fixing any budget usually reveals 10–20% that didn't make the original plan.