Free tool
Food cost calculator
Food cost is what the ingredients in a dish cost you, as a share of its menu price. List what goes on the plate, type the price, and see it worked out.
Example numbers to start (example number: Made up to show how the calculator works). The starting numbers are a made-up burger, not real prices. Type your own: they stay on this page and aren't sent anywhere.
What a guest pays for the dish.
Food cost
24.5%
$2.70 of ingredients in a $11.00 dish. That leaves $8.30 for everything else: staff, rent, the bills and any profit.
How it's worked out
Food cost % = ingredient cost ÷ menu price × 100. → $2.70 ÷ $11.00 × 100 = 24.5%
Working backward: what should it cost on the menu?
Your own goal for this dish, as a share of its price.
Menu price for that
$9.00
At $9.00, $2.70 of ingredients is 30% of the price.
How it's worked out
Menu price = ingredient cost ÷ target food cost %. → $2.70 ÷ 30% = $9.00
Learn the idea behind it
A calculator gives you the number. The lesson shows you what it means and what to do about it.
Free lesson
You sell a $15 burger. How much do you keep?
Take a burger apart ingredient by ingredient, fill in a recipe cost card, and price a new dish of your own.
Take the lessonMore free calculators
Break-even calculator
Type your fixed costs, your price and what each sale costs you, and see how many sales a month and a day you need just to stay even.
Markup vs. margin calculator
See the markup and the margin from a cost and a price, or turn a markup into a margin and back.
Labor cost calculator
See what a worker really costs an hour and a shift, with payroll taxes, state costs and benefits, and your labor cost as a share of a week's sales.
For learning, not financial advice. See all the tools.