How do you calculate prices for a catering quote?

Putting together a catering quote is more than sticking a price on your menu. You need to know what a job actually costs before you can set a fair selling price. Price it too cheaply and you earn nothing from it. Price it too high and the client walks. This article shows you, step by step, how to get from cost price to a quote that adds up.

Why getting your pricing right matters

Many caterers underestimate their costs. They think of ingredients, but forget the hours a chef puts into preparation, the fuel costs for transport, or the clean-up afterwards. The result: a job you work hard on and barely earn anything from.

A solid pricing calculation shows you what you actually earn on every job. That's good for your bank balance, and essential if you want to grow. You can only decide deliberately which jobs to take on once you know exactly what they cost and what they bring in.

Which costs should you include?

Before you can set a price, map out every cost category. They roughly fall into five groups:

• Ingredients: raw ingredients for every dish, including a safety margin of 5 to 10% for waste and spoilage.
• Staff: gross hourly wage plus employer's contributions for chefs, service staff and transport staff. Count set-up and get-out time too, not just the active service hours.
• Transport and logistics: fuel, toll charges, any vehicle hire and parking costs on site (see also: How do you calculate transport costs in catering quotes?).
• Equipment: hire or depreciation of chafing dishes, crockery, tents and other equipment you bring along.
• Overheads: a share of your fixed costs, such as kitchen rent, insurance and admin, spread across the number of jobs per year.

How do you calculate the cost price per person?

The simplest method is to calculate the cost price per person first, then scale it up to the total guest count.

Say you're catering a lunch for 80 people:

• Ingredients: €12 per person
• Staff (4 people, 6 hours, €22 gross per hour): €660 total, or €8.25 per person
• Transport: €80 total, or €1.00 per person
• Equipment: €120 total, or €1.50 per person
• Overhead charge: €2.00 per person

Cost price: €24.75 per person. With a 30% margin, that comes to a selling price of around €35 per person, or €2,800 for the whole job.

Watch the staff line in this example. It's almost as high as your ingredients, and it's the line that runs away fastest. One hour longer on the get-out than planned costs you €88 in this example, more than a full percentage point of your margin on the whole job.

What profit margin should you aim for?

For catering businesses, a healthy margin typically sits between 20% and 35%. How you set it depends on the type of event:

• Corporate lunches and small events (20 to 25%): high competition, clients compare quickly. You play on volume.
• Weddings and gala dinners (28 to 35%): more tailoring, higher expectations. Clients pay for quality and for not having to worry about a thing.
• Festivals and large public events (25 to 30%): economies of scale, but also more logistical risk.

Use the formula: selling price = cost price divided by (1 minus the desired margin). With a cost price of €25 and a target margin of 30%, that's €25 / 0.70 = €35.71 per person.

If you want to know whether your margin is in line with the rest of the sector, compare it with the profit margin of a catering business.

How do you handle extra costs and unexpected situations?

Some costs are variable and hard to estimate in advance. Show them separately in your quote so the client understands what they're paying for:

• Weekend and evening surcharge: staff working on a Saturday evening usually earn more. Factor that straight into your calculation.
• Buffer for the unexpected: set aside 5 to 10% of the total cost for unexpected expenses, such as a broken appliance you need to hire in, or more guests than expected.
• Cancellation costs: set out in your quote what happens with a late cancellation, so costs you've already incurred are covered.
• Travel costs beyond your standard range: events far from your base cost more. Work out a fixed mileage rate or a day rate for the driver.

Check your quote afterwards

The best pricing calculation is the one from last time, provided you've checked it afterwards. Once a job is done, put your budgeted costs next to what you actually spent: on buying in, on hours, and on everything extra you picked up along the way.

After five or six jobs, a pattern emerges. Usually the difference sits in the hours and in the last-minute shopping on the day itself. Build that difference into your next quote, and only then does your cost price really add up.

Frequently asked questions

What is a normal margin for a catering business?

That differs by segment. For corporate catering, a net margin of 20 to 25% is typical. For wedding catering and gala dinners you can aim for 28 to 35%. Count your overheads correctly, and you can be sure that margin actually remains once every cost is covered.

How do you work out ingredient costs accurately?

For each dish, work out how many grams of each ingredient you need per person, multiply that by the purchase price per kilo, and add a safety margin of 5 to 10% for waste and spoilage. With complex menus this adds up fast, so use a spreadsheet or software that calculates it automatically from your recipes.

Should I show VAT separately on my quote?

Yes, unless you only deal with private clients. For B2B clients it's standard to show prices excluding VAT and list VAT separately. For private clients you show the price including VAT. Always make it explicit in your quote whether the amount is excluding or including VAT, and which rate applies.

How do you avoid pricing yourself too low?

The most common mistake is only looking at ingredient costs. Make sure you have a fixed format that walks through every cost category: staff, transport, overheads and a buffer for the unexpected. Always compare your final cost price with your average for similar events in the past. If a new job comes out well below that, go through the calculation again.

How do you calculate the cost price when the guest count is still uncertain?

Build your quote on a minimum and a maximum scenario. Work out fixed costs such as transport and set-up separately from the variable cost per person. That way, your quote can show a price per person while making clear that fixed costs apply regardless of the exact guest count.

How many hours should you allow for set-up and get-out?

That depends on the venue, but for a buffet for 80 people, allow around two hours for set-up and one hour for get-out, plus the drive there and back. If the venue has no lift or no kitchen, add another hour. Write down afterwards what it actually took, and your next quote will be more accurate.

Catermonkey automatically works out your cost price per person from your recipes and quantities, so you always know whether your quote adds up.

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