What is the actual cost of a fountain pop?

It actually costs a lot more than you think. It's common for people to say it costs practically nothing, or less than a nickel, or the cup costs more than the soda, but I've just been doing the numbers for our restaurant and I'm happy to share them.

Depending on the flavor, bag size, and where you get them, the syrup bags can cost around $75 for the 5-gallon bibs, more or less. These make about 30 gallons of soda -- actually a little less because you can never drain them completely. According to our rep at Coke, each 16-oz cup usually takes about 9 oz of soda with the rest being ice. So if we're looking at about .02 per ounce of soda from that box, then we're at about 18 cents for the soda itself in the cup.

Now even though Coke was nice enough to loan us the fountain dispenser, we still have to rent the ice machine. Amortized over the amount of sodas we sell in a month, that's about 10 cents per soda just for the ice. Cups are a nickel, lids are 2 cents and so are the straws, and don't forget the CO2 tanks, which work out to about 3 cents per cup over the course of a month for us.

So add it all up and it comes out to about 39 cents for a 16-oz cup. Ironically, a 12-can of the same stuff from Coke costs about .38, less if we get them from Costco. So a fountain drink actually costs us more than a canned one, for less soda.