The Edinburgh Tour Guide
Five guided pub crawls run in Edinburgh's Old Town and they cost between £12 and £15, which is a narrower spread than almost anything else you can book in this city. The decision is therefore not really about price. It is about which nights they run, how many of the drinks are actually included, and whether the one you have been looking at will even tell you what it charges before you reach the payment screen. One of the five does not.
£12 is the floor and £15 is the ceiling for a standard crawl. Below that, you are looking at a shorter product rather than a cheaper one.
The ticket buys shots, entry and a group, not a night of drinking. Four to seven shots depending on the operator, free entry to the bars and the club, and a discount on everything else. The rest of the bar bill is yours.
Two of the five do not run midweek. On The Rocks is Friday and Saturday only and City Explorers runs Wednesday to Saturday, so a Monday in Edinburgh leaves you two choices out of five.
The spread
£12 to £15
Drinks included
Only the shots
Run every night
2 of 5
The five crawls, and what each one costs
Every figure below came off the operator's own booking flow on 24 October 2026, not from its homepage. That distinction matters here more than usual, because the homepage and the checkout do not always agree, and in one case the homepage does not mention money at all.
| Crawl | Price | Nights | Venues | Shots |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bobby's Bar Crawl | £12, reduced from £15 | 21:00 start | 5 bars + The Hive | 5 |
| City Explorers | £12 online, £14 at the door | Wed to Sat, 20:00 | 7 bars and clubs | 7 |
| The Original Edinburgh Pub Crawl | £15, not shown on its site | Every night, 20:00 | 7 bars and clubs | 6 plus a bomb |
| Ebrius, regular crawl | £15 | Every night, 19:30 | 6 bars + 1 club | 7 |
| On The Rocks | £15 | Fri and Sat only, 21:00 | 5 bars and clubs | 5, or “at least 4” |
Read on 24 October 2026 from each operator's own booking page. Bobby's and Ebrius figures from Viator in GBP. The On The Rocks shot count appears twice on the same page with two different numbers, and both are reproduced above.
The useful way to read that table is to ignore the three-pound spread and look at the last three columns. £15 buys seven bars on one crawl and five on another, and £12 buys seven on a third. The price is not tracking what you get.
Bobby's Bar Crawl: 5 Bars and The Hive
Rated 4.95 across 151 reviews, and the only one that publishes its full route before you pay, which is what makes it comparable with doing it yourself. Entry to all five bars and the nightclub is included, and so are five shots. Drinks beyond the shots are not.
Pub Crawl in Edinburgh
Rated 4.82 across 229 reviews, which is the second largest sample of the five. Six hours against the five hours most of the others run. The same caveat applies: the ticket covers entry and shots, not the bar bill.
What “from £10” actually buys
Ebrius advertises from £10, in its page title, in its description and across the top of its site. The £10 is real, and it is not the crawl the rest of the page is describing. It buys the Late Crawl: a 22:00 start at Belushi's on Market Street, four bars and clubs instead of six plus a club, and shots on arrival rather than one at every stop. The full Ebrius crawl, the one with seven shots and six bars, is £15 and starts at 19:30 at Ox184 on the Cowgate.
That is a legitimate product and it suits a particular night, which is the one where dinner has overrun and the evening needs picking up at ten o'clock. It is simply not five pounds off the same thing.
The three ways the advertised price is not the price
- Ebrius, “from £10”. That is the four-bar Late Crawl. The full one is £15.
- City Explorers, £12. That is the online price. At the door it is £14, which the operator states plainly, and which is worth knowing if the plan was to decide on the night.
- The Original Edinburgh Pub Crawl, no price at all. Its site sells the night on “7 bars, 6 free shots” and never names a figure. The £15 only appears once you open the booking widget.
The night you are free is the first thing to check
Prices this close together make the calendar the real constraint. On The Rocks runs on Friday and Saturday only. City Explorers runs Wednesday to Saturday. The Original and Ebrius run every night, and Ebrius advertises 364 days a year.
So a Tuesday in Edinburgh cuts the field from five to three before you have compared anything, and a Monday does the same. This is the detail most likely to send you to a booking page that has no availability rather than no space, and the two are easy to confuse when the calendar simply shows nothing.
What the ratings mean, and what the review counts mean
All five describe themselves in superlatives and three of them use the words “number one”. The ratings are more informative, as long as you read the sample size next to the score rather than the score on its own.
| Crawl | Rating | Reviews |
|---|---|---|
| Bobby's Bar Crawl | 4.95 | 151 |
| Pub Crawl in Edinburgh | 4.82 | 229 |
| Ebrius Party Pub Crawl | 4.77 | 79 |
| The Original Edinburgh Pub Crawl | 4.44 | 306 |
Viator ratings and review counts in GBP, read 24 October 2026. On The Rocks does not sell through Viator and is not comparable on the same scale, so it is left out of this table rather than given a number from somewhere else.
The crawl with the largest review base has the lowest score of the four, by about half a point. That is worth more than it looks: 306 reviews is the only sample here big enough to be hard to move, and it is the one that settled at 4.44. A 4.95 from 151 is a good sign and a smaller one, and a 4.77 from 79 is a promising start rather than a track record.
One number needs separating out. City Explorers advertises 5.0 from 27,002 Google reviews, which is accurate and is not about the pub crawl. That score covers the whole company, which also runs free walking tours, ghost tours, a Harry Potter walk, a castle tour and a Loch Ness day trip. The same thing happens on our own free walking tours page, where the company-wide figure is the one every operator quotes.
Doing it yourself, and what the £12 is actually buying
The reason a self-guided crawl works here is geography. The Grassmarket and the Cowgate sit end to end on one downhill stretch of the Old Town, so a whole night happens within a few minutes' walk and no taxi is involved at any point.
Bobby's Bar Crawl is the only one of the five that publishes where it goes before you pay: Pilgrim, then Bar 50 or Stramash, then The Three Sisters or Biddy Mulligans, then Finnegan's Wake, then Frankenstein, finishing at The Hive on Niddry Street. On The Rocks sits at the other end of that scale and tells you the meeting point only after the booking goes through.
Knowing the route is what makes the £12 a comparison rather than a leap. Walk it alone and you pay for every drink and for whatever the club charges on the door that night. Book it and the five shots, the entry to all five bars and the entry to the club are covered. What is never covered, on any of the five, is the drinking. Bobby's is the one that writes it into its exclusions in as many words: drinks are not included except the complimentary shots.
December, Halloween and the 31st
The seasonal versions are a different purchase, and the gap is much wider than three pounds. The Original Edinburgh Pub Crawl sells a Hogmanay crawl from £50 for six hours, against £15 for its ordinary five-hour night. It also runs a Halloween crawl at six hours rather than five, with no price shown in its booking list on 24 October.
Fifty pounds is worth holding against the alternative on the same night. A Street Party ticket starts at £39 and the concert in the Gardens is £79, so the pub crawl on the 31st is not the cheap option it is the rest of the year. It sits between the two headline events, costs more than the bigger one, and is indoors, which on a wet Edinburgh New Year is a real argument rather than a small one.
Before you book
- Check the night first, not the price. Two of the five do not run Monday to Wednesday, and the prices are too close to be worth optimising.
- Book online rather than at the door. City Explorers charges £12 against £14, and the rest fill up at weekends.
- Budget the bar separately. The ticket covers shots and entry. Every other drink is yours, at Old Town prices, for five hours.
- Bring photo identification. All five are over 18s and City Explorers says so explicitly.
- If it is the 31st, compare £50 against the £39 Street Party before booking either one.
If the evening you are filling is earlier than this, the two things that work in the same part of town are a whisky tasting with a seat in it and an underground ghost tour, both of which finish in time to join a crawl at nine if the night turns out to be going well.
Quick answers
How much is a pub crawl in Edinburgh?
Between £12 and £15 for the standard guided crawl, checked on each operator’s own booking page on 24 October 2026. City Explorers is £12 online and £14 if you turn up and pay at the door. Bobby’s Bar Crawl is £12 on Viator, reduced from £15. The Original Edinburgh Pub Crawl, On The Rocks and the full Ebrius crawl are all £15. Ebrius also sells a £10 version, which is a different, shorter product.
Are drinks included in an Edinburgh pub crawl?
No. What is included is a set number of shots, between four and seven depending on the operator, plus entry to the bars and the nightclub at the end and a discount on everything else you order. Bobby’s Bar Crawl states it plainly in its exclusions: drinks are not included except the complimentary shots. Budget for the night on top of the ticket.
Which nights do Edinburgh pub crawls run?
It varies more than the prices do. The Original Edinburgh Pub Crawl and Ebrius run every night. City Explorers runs Wednesday to Saturday. On The Rocks runs Friday and Saturday only. If you are in Edinburgh on a Monday or a Tuesday, two of the five are not an option, so check the night before you plan around one.
What is the age limit for an Edinburgh pub crawl?
Every crawl on this page is over 18s only, and City Explorers states that you must bring photo identification. The crowd that operators describe is mostly 18 to 35, and several of them sell to stag and hen groups, so the tone is closer to a night out than to a tasting.
Can you do an Edinburgh pub crawl yourself?
Yes, and the geography makes it easy: the Grassmarket and the Cowgate run end to end downhill in the Old Town, so a whole night fits on one stretch without a taxi. Bobby’s Bar Crawl is the one operator that publishes its full route, which is Pilgrim, then Bar 50 or Stramash, then The Three Sisters or Biddy Mulligans, then Finnegan’s Wake, then Frankenstein, finishing at The Hive. What the £12 adds is the five shots, entry to the club at the end, the queue jump and a group to walk it with.
How much does a pub crawl cost at Hogmanay?
The Original Edinburgh Pub Crawl sells a New Year’s Eve version from £50 for six hours, against £15 for the same operator’s ordinary five-hour crawl. That is more than a Street Party ticket, which starts at £39. If the plan is the 31st, compare the two before booking either.
About this guide
Written by Diego Fresno, Independent travel writer and researcher. Every price, start time, venue count, shot count and night of operation on this page was read on 24 October 2026 from the operator's own booking page: the FareHarbor widget behind edinburghpubcrawl.com, cityexplorerstours.com, ontherocksbarcrawl.com and ebriusedinburghpubcrawl.co.uk. Ratings, review counts and Bobby's published route came from a live Viator search in GBP the same day. The Original Edinburgh Pub Crawl's £15 had to be taken from inside its booking widget because its website names no figure anywhere. Deliberately not claimed: what any of these nights is actually like, because nobody here has been on one, so there is no verdict on which is the better night out; what a shot or a club entry costs in Edinburgh on the night, which would have priced the self-guided version exactly and which the venues do not publish; whether the Halloween crawl has a price, because its booking item showed none; and any rating for On The Rocks, which does not sell through Viator and is therefore left out of that table rather than given a number from a different scale. This page carries affiliate links, and the night it describes most favourably is the £12 one. Verified: August 2026. About the author →