How much does a quiz night really cost a pub?

Ask a landlord what their quiz night costs and most will say "the prize". It's usually more than that. Staff time, paper, kit and the odd round of drinks for the host all add up.

Here's how to work out your real number. We'll show the sums, so you can swap in your own figures.

Line A: the host

You've got two choices: run it yourself or with your staff, or pay a host.

If a member of staff runs it, cost their time, including setting up and packing away. A two-hour quiz is closer to three hours of work once you count the set-up.

From April 2026 the National Living Wage for workers aged 21 and over is £12.71 an hour. So:

3 hours × £12.71 = £38.13 a night
4 quiz nights a month × £38.13 = £152.52 a month

That's the minimum. If your quiz host earns more than the National Living Wage, use their rate. Add any employer costs you pay on top, such as National Insurance or pension.

If you pay a host, ask them for their price per night, and whether it includes the questions, the sound kit and the answer sheets. Prices vary a lot. For a sense of one part of the market, when we checked in October 2026, one quiz company's job advert on the government's Find a Job site offered hosts £50 per quiz hosted. That's what the company pays its host, not what it charges a pub.

Write your host cost in line A.

Line B: the prizes

The prize is the cost most landlords already know. The trick is to work it out over a year, not a week.

Say you give a £20 bar tab to the winning team every week:

£20 × 52 weeks = £1,040 a year
£1,040 ÷ 12 = £86.67 a month

At Teal Farm, our all-day phone quiz gives a £20 bar tab to the weekly winner and £100 to the monthly champion. That's £1,040 plus £1,200, or £2,240 a year. Prizes are a real cost. Plan them, don't drift into them.

One thing on bar tabs: the £20 is at your prices, not what it costs you. The real cost to the pub is lower, because it's spent on your stock at your margin.

Write your prize cost in line B.

Line C: questions, paper and pens

If you write the questions yourself, that's time, and it's more time than people think. A good quiz of 60 to 80 questions can take a few hours to write and check. Cost it at your own hourly rate if you want an honest number.

Answer sheets, pens and the odd marker add a few pounds a month. Put in your own figure. If you print at home, count the ink.

Write it in line C.

Line D: kit

You probably have a mic and speaker already. If you need anything new, spread the cost over a year so it's comparable to the monthly lines.

For example, if you want the questions on a TV, a streaming stick is one way to do it. TechRadar listed a popular 4K streaming stick at a normal UK price of £69.99 in October 2025, when it was on sale for £39.99. Spread over a year:

£69.99 ÷ 12 = £5.83 a month

If you use an old laptop and an HDMI lead you already own, line D might be zero.

Line E: music licence

If you run a music round, playing recorded music to customers usually needs TheMusicLicence from PPL PRS. If you already hold one for background music, check your quiz is covered. If it changes your fee, put the difference in line E. See our music licence post.

Add it up

Monthly cost = A + B + C + D + E.

Here's a worked example for a staff-run Tuesday quiz, four times a month:

A, host: £152.52
B, prizes: £86.67
C, sheets and pens: say £5 (use your own figure)
D, kit: £5.83
E, music licence: £0 (no music round)

Total: £250.02 a month, or about £62.50 a night.

The sum that matters: does it pay for itself?

A quiz night doesn't need to make a profit on its own. It needs to bring in more than it costs.

Work out your average profit per drink. Not the price, the profit after the cost of the drink. Then:

Extra drinks needed a month = monthly cost ÷ profit per drink

Using the example above, and assuming £2 profit on a drink (use your own figure):

£250.02 ÷ £2 = about 125 extra drinks a month
125 ÷ 4 nights = about 31 extra drinks a night

That's eight teams of four having one more drink each than they would on a normal Tuesday. Put like that, most quiz nights pay for themselves if they bring in a few teams who wouldn't otherwise be there.

The key word is extra. If your quiz teams are all regulars who'd be in anyway, the quiz isn't earning its keep. It's just keeping them. That still matters, but it's a different sum.

Sources

GOV.UK: National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates
Find a Job (DWP): Pub Quiz Host vacancy, £50 per quiz hosted (checked 23 October 2026; adverts close and may disappear)
TechRadar: 4K streaming stick price, October 2025
PPL PRS: TheMusicLicence for pubs and bars

We checked every source on 23 October 2026. Rules change, so check the latest version before you act. Nothing here is legal advice.