→ Free tool
Food Cost Calculator
Price a dish the way profitable kitchens do — from the plate up. Enter what the ingredients cost and what you charge to see your food cost percentage and gross profit, or set a target percentage to get the price you should be charging. Paste a recipe and it totals the ingredients for you.
Start from a template
Import a recipe (CSV or paste)
Paste or upload the ingredients for one dish — one per line as: ingredient, cost. We'll total them into the plate cost.
→ Your food cost
In the healthy range
Most restaurants aim for a food cost of 28–35%. Yours is 28.1%. To hit a 30% target on this dish you'd price it at $15.00. Remember food cost is only half of prime cost — labor is the other half, and together they usually need to stay under about 60% of sales.
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<iframe src="https://planypals.com/embed/food-cost-calculator" title="Food Cost Calculator" width="100%" height="760" loading="lazy" style="border:1px solid #ddd3bf;max-width:760px"></iframe> <p style="font:13px/1.5 sans-serif">Free <a href="https://planypals.com/tools/food-cost-calculator">Food Cost Calculator by Planypals</a></p>
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Get a clean PDF of your menu pricing and food cost — useful for a restaurant plan or menu engineering.
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Calculations run entirely in your browser. Figures are estimates for planning, not financial advice.
Why food cost percentage runs a kitchen
Food cost percentage is the share of a dish's price that goes to its ingredients. It's the single most-watched number in a kitchen because it's where margin quietly leaks — a few points of drift across a busy menu is the difference between a profitable month and a loss. Track it per dish and you can see which plates carry the menu and which ones you're practically giving away.
Pricing from cost, not from a hunch
- Food cost % = plate cost ÷ menu price
- Target price = plate cost ÷ target food cost %
- Gross profit = menu price − plate cost
A burger with $4.50 of ingredients sold at $16 runs a 28% food cost and leaves $11.50of gross profit. Want a 30% target instead? Divide $4.50 by 0.30 and you'd price it at $15. Costing every plate this way — and re-costing when supplier prices move — is what keeps a menu honest.
Food cost is only half of prime cost
A tight food cost can still sink a restaurant if labor runs wild, which is why operators manage to prime cost — food plus labor. Together they typically need to stay under about 60% of sales for a full-service restaurant to work. A dish with a beautiful 25% food cost that takes twenty minutes of skilled labor to plate may be less profitable than a simple one at 33%. Read the two costs together, not apart.
Menu engineering: beyond the average
The goal isn't a low food cost on every item — it's a healthy blended margin across the menu. High-margin dishes (pasta, pizza, drinks) can subsidize a signature steak that guests expect to see, and smart menu design steers diners toward the plates that pay. Once you know each dish's food cost and gross profit, you can position, portion, and price the menu as a system rather than a list.
Cost each plate here, then size the whole opening with the startup cost calculator and check your blended margin across the menu with the profit margin calculator. When you're ready to raise or borrow, our guide to how to write a restaurant business plan shows how these numbers become a plan lenders and investors fund.
→ Beyond the calculator
Opening or financing a restaurant?
Menu math is the heart of a restaurant plan. Our restaurant business plan writers build the prime-cost model, concept, and projections that lenders and investors fund.
Frequently asked questions
- Food cost percentage = plate cost ÷ menu price, expressed as a percent. If a dish costs you $4.50 in ingredients and sells for $16, your food cost is 4.50 ÷ 16 = 28%. To work backward to a price, divide the plate cost by your target percentage: $4.50 ÷ 0.30 = a $15 menu price for a 30% target.
- Most full-service restaurants aim for 28–35%. Quick-service can run a little lower, fine dining a little higher, and bars far lower on drinks (often 18–24%). The right target balances value to the guest against the margin you need — but food cost is only half the story: labor is the other half of 'prime cost,' and the two together usually need to stay under about 60% of sales.
- Start from cost, not a guess. Total the ingredients for one serving (including waste and small items like oil and garnish), then divide by your target food cost percentage to get a floor price. Adjust up or down for what the market will bear, how the dish is positioned, and menu psychology — but never price below that cost-based floor.
- Food cost covers only ingredients. Prime cost adds labor (wages, taxes, benefits) to food cost — it's the number restaurateurs actually manage to, because a great food cost can still be sunk by a bloated schedule. Keeping prime cost under roughly 60% of sales is a common survival threshold.
- Yes — it runs in your browser, nothing is stored, and there's no sign-up. When you're opening or financing a restaurant, our restaurant business plan writers build the menu economics, prime-cost model, and projections lenders and investors expect.