Food Cost Calculator

Work out what a batch costs to make, what each serving costs, and what to charge for a target food cost percentage. Free, no sign-up, and nothing you enter leaves your browser.

The calculator needs JavaScript to recalculate. The example below shows its results, and the formulas further down let you do the same math by hand.

Ingredient 1: All-purpose flour

Name

Package price ($)

Package size

Amount used

Ingredient cost $1.76

Ingredient 2: Butter

Name

Package price ($)

Package size

Amount used

Ingredient cost $2.25

Ingredient 3: Sugar

Name

Package price ($)

Package size

Amount used

Ingredient cost $0.71

Ingredient 4: Eggs

Name

Package price ($)

Package size

Amount used

Ingredient cost $0.90

Ingredient 5: Chocolate chips

Name

Package price ($)

Package size

Amount used

Ingredient cost $3.50

Servings in the batch

Price from

Target food cost Target margin

Target food cost (%)

Batch cost: $9.11
Cost per serving: $0.25
Suggested price per serving: $0.84
Suggested price per batch: $30.38

How food cost percentage works

Food cost percentage is the share of a selling price that goes to the ingredients. If a cookie costs $0.25 in ingredients and sells for $1.00, its food cost is 25%. The rest of the price has to cover everything else: packaging, labor, rent, fees and profit. Choosing a target food cost and pricing from it keeps that share consistent across products.

The calculator uses three formulas:

Ingredient cost = package price ÷ package size × amount used, with the package size and the amount converted to the same unit first.
Cost per serving = batch cost (the sum of the ingredient costs) ÷ servings in the batch.
Suggested price = cost per serving ÷ target food cost. A target gross margin on ingredients of m% is the same as a food cost of (100 − m)%, so a 70% margin and a 30% food cost give the same price.

Weight units (g, kg, oz, lb) convert to each other, and count units (each, dozen) convert to each other. An ingredient bought by weight cannot be used by count in the same row, because that needs the weight of one item; enter it by weight instead.

Worked example: 36 chocolate chip cookies

This is the example loaded in the calculator above. Each row converts the package and the amount used to the same unit, then multiplies the price per unit by the amount.

Ingredient costs for the worked example
Ingredient	Package	Used	Cost
All-purpose flour	$3.99 for 5 lb	1 kg	$1.76
Butter	$4.50 for 1 lb	8 oz	$2.25
Sugar	$3.20 for 4 lb	400 g	$0.71
Eggs	$3.60 for 1 dozen	3 each	$0.90
Chocolate chips	$3.50 for 12 oz	340 g	$3.50
Batch cost			$9.11

The batch makes 36 cookies, so the cost per cookie is $9.11 ÷ 36 = $0.25. At a 30% target food cost, the suggested price is $0.25 ÷ 0.3 = $0.84 per cookie. (The calculator keeps full precision until the end, so rounded figures may differ by a cent.)

What this calculator leaves out

It costs ingredients only. Add packaging, labels, labor and overhead before you settle on a price, and recheck when ingredient prices change. It also does not save anything: close the tab and your numbers are gone.

Do this for every recipe, automatically

KitchenSync recipe costing does the same math for every recipe and keeps your supplier prices, so you enter each price once. Record prices from several suppliers and it uses the best unit price for each ingredient; change a recipe and its batch cost and cost per serving update next to its Nutrition Facts label. Recipes accept weight and volume units, with volume converted to weight using USDA density data.

The Free plan covers one recipe with no credit card. See KitchenSync plans and pricing.