Your plan
Decide before you go out what you'd like to drink, roughly how much and when you plan to head home. Decisions made in advance are far easier to stick to than ones made at the bar.
An alternative to buying rounds
Fair Round Protocol™
Match your intentions, not the round.
Buying rounds made sense when everyone in the pub drank much the same thing at much the same speed, but that is rarely how a group of friends drinks now. Some of us are trying to cut down, some have set ourselves a budget for the evening, and some aren't drinking alcohol at all, yet the round still expects everyone to keep pace and take their turn at the bar.
People who would rather not join in often feel awkward saying so, and some end up turning down invitations altogether. The Fair Round Protocol™ lets friends go out together while each person drinks and pays according to their own plans, so that nobody has to choose between keeping up and staying at home.
The Fair Round Protocol™ is an agreement between friends drinking together: each person decides their own drinks, pace, and budget before the evening begins; pays for what they actually have rather than buying rounds; and can stop or go home whenever they wish. It is designed so budget or drinking habits don't exclude anyone from a night out.
What it involves
The five principles
Your money
You pay for what you drink. Someone having three pints shouldn't be subsidising someone having six, and the friend on soft drinks shouldn't be paying towards cocktails.
Your group
You can still order together and enjoy each other's company, but nobody has to buy a round or wait until it's their turn.
Everyone included
The friend who can only afford a couple of drinks, or who isn't drinking alcohol, is as welcome at the table as anyone else.
Your decision to stop
You can stop drinking or go home whenever you like. If you've put money into a kitty, you take back whatever you haven't spent instead of feeling you ought to drink it.
How it fits together
Your plan comes first, and the payment arrangement supports it
What distinguishes the Fair Round Protocol from an ordinary kitty or a split bill is that each person sets their own plan before the evening starts, and the group's payment is arranged around those decisions rather than setting the pace for everyone.
Your personal plan
DrinksPaceBudgetHome time
Do it yourselves
Agree a simple arrangement within the group
Use the venue
Use the tabs, table ordering or bill splitting the venue offers
Enjoy the evening together
Spend the evening with your friends as you normally would
The result
Everyone drinks and spends as they intended, and nobody is priced out of the evening
How to use it
Two ways to put it into practice
You don't need an app or a particular pub. Choose whichever of these suits your group and the place you're going.
Suggesting it to your friends
Suggest it as something the whole group does together, rather than something you're doing on your own. Giving it a name helps, because it turns what might feel like an awkward personal request into a recognised arrangement that anyone can agree to.
‘Shall we do a Fair Round tonight? We'll still get the drinks in together, but everyone puts in for their own.’
‘How about a Fair Round kitty? Everyone puts in what they're planning to drink, and anything left at the end goes back to whoever didn't spend it.’
If anyone wants to know more, tap and let them scan the code with their phone.
Why reconsider the round?
Why the traditional round no longer suits everyone
When I was a student, the only decision at the bar was whether to have lager or bitter. They cost much the same, and we all drank at much the same speed, so over an evening the round more or less balanced itself out. When I meet friends for a drink now, one will be on wine and another on cocktails, someone will be driving, someone else will be drinking alcohol-free, and at least one will have a budget that stretches to a couple of drinks. The round was designed for a kind of evening that has largely disappeared.
Buying rounds is a generous and sociable habit, and if it works for your group, there is no reason to change it. However, when people at the same table drink different things on different budgets, it tends to cause problems nobody likes to mention.
Unequal costs
The person drinking halves ends up paying for the person drinking doubles, or decides it's cheaper to stay at home.
Keeping pace
A round moves at the speed of its fastest drinker, so everyone else either keeps up or finds drinks lining up in front of them.
Feeling obliged to stay
It's awkward to leave before you've bought your round, and once you have, everyone else owes you a drink.
37%
of UK drinkers have drunk more than they expected to because they were in a round, making it the most common reason given.
Drinkaware Monitor 2019, 1,860 adults who drink
56%
of drinkers say they drink more than usual on an evening or night out with friends.
Drinkaware Monitor 2026, 7,210 UK adults
44%
of 18 to 34-year-olds who moderate their drinking say saving money is one of their reasons.
Drinkaware Monitor 2025Concern about rounds is nothing new. An observational study of young adults in Scottish bars, published in 1985, found that men who bought rounds tended to drink more than those who didn't. Much earlier, in 1902, a group of Irish clergy founded the St Patrick's Anti-Treating League, whose members pledged to stop buying and accepting rounds while remaining free to drink, and James Joyce poked fun at it in Ulysses.
The League's answer was to step away from the custom altogether, whereas the Fair Round Protocol is designed to keep everyone in the group, albeit playing by a different set of rules.
Calling time on the round
A longer article on the history of rounds, the research behind this page and what the science says about pace and enjoyment.
Sources
- Drinkaware (2019). Drinkaware Monitor 2019: Drinking behaviours and peer pressure.
- Drinkaware (2026). Drinkaware Monitor 2026: Drinking trends.
- Drinkaware (2025). Drinkaware Monitor 2025.
- Aitken, P. P. (1985). An observational study of young adults' drinking groups, II. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 20(4), 445–457. DOI.
- McNally, F. Rounding up the rounds. The Irish Times.
Where the technology already exists
Facilities that already exist
Many pubs and restaurants already have the technology the Fair Round Protocol needs, originally introduced to save time at the bar or to make bills easier to settle. The examples below show what is available; none of these organisations has endorsed the protocol.
Young's On Tap
The app lets you order to your table, run and pay your own tab from your phone, and split a bill with friends.
Especially useful if everyone wants their own tab.
Young's On Tap on the App StoreGreene King app
The app lets you order and pay from your table on your own phone, although Greene King says app ordering isn't available in every one of its pubs.
Each person at the table can pay for their own order.
greeneking.co.ukSquare for Restaurants
Staff can split a bill by item or by seat, so that each person pays only for what they ordered.
Availability depends on how each venue has set up its system.
Square's guide to splitting billsLightspeed Restaurant
Staff can split a bill by seat or by selected items, so that guests pay for what they actually had.
Availability depends on how each venue has set up its system.
Lightspeed's guide to splitting billsPub group apps are run by the operator in its own pubs, although availability can still vary from one pub to another. A provider offers payment technology to venues, and each venue decides whether to use it. If you're unsure, ask at the bar.
For pubs, restaurants and payment providers
Facilities you may already offer
Table ordering, individual tabs, and split bills were introduced to shorten queues and reduce arguments over the bill. They also make it easier for people to stick to their own budget and pace, and to bring along friends who might otherwise stay home.
A customer who can only afford a couple of drinks can join a group without dreading the round, and drivers and people drinking alcohol-free remain part of the table for the whole evening, which tends to keep groups in the pub for longer.
None of this requires a new scheme or any expense. If your venue already offers these facilities and you would like it to be featured as an example of good practice, please get in touch.
Newsletter
Occasional news by email
I'll send an occasional email when there's new research, feedback from groups who have tried the protocol, or a venue worth knowing about. You can unsubscribe at any time.
About the founder
Alastair Cassie
I spent more than 30 years in the wine trade before becoming an alcohol moderation coach, and I'm one of the very few in the UK who doesn't coach from a position of personal sobriety. I still enjoy a drink, so I understand exactly where my clients are coming from.
The same problem comes up with client after client. They set out with a sensible plan for the evening and the round undoes it. I created the Fair Round Protocol for them, and for anyone who has turned down an invitation because they couldn't afford a round, or drunk more than they intended to keep up.
To find out more about my wider work, visit DrinkLessCoach.com.
Contact
Get in touch
Whether you've tried a Fair Round with your friends, run a venue that already makes it easy, or would like to talk about the idea, I'd be glad to hear from you. You can use the form or email me at hello@drinklesscoach.com.