Catering Cost Per Plate & Quote Calculator

About the Catering Cost Per Plate & Quote Calculator

A caterer’s quotation, priced from the real cost of the event: the guests (children eat and pay a share of an adult plate), the menu with a portion per guest for every dish and its cost per kg, litre or piece — or a batch recipe of ingredients with their prices and trimming loss — the staff, the equipment and rentals, transport and other costs, your overheads, a contingency and the markup or margin you want. You get the cost per plate, the price per plate (rounded up to the step you choose), the profit, how much of each dish to cook and a purchase list for the event.

The quotation comes out as a branded PDF with your logo, GSTIN and food licence number, the menu by course, the plate prices, GST as CGST and SGST (or IGST), the advance and your own terms, plus a phone picture and a short text for WhatsApp. An internal costing sheet with your margin never goes to the client. Without a pass the result stays a free preview: the price per plate in full, the first rows of the costing, and the quotation as pages marked “MySmartCoPilot preview · not for use” with its totals hidden; the clean PDF, the pictures, the text and the spreadsheets unlock with a Premium pass.

Common uses

• Caterers and tiffin services quoting weddings, receptions, birthdays and community meals the same day as the enquiry.
• Banquet halls and hotels pricing a menu per plate for an event, with the staff and rentals inside or listed beside it.
• Cloud kitchens and home chefs pricing a bulk order for an office or a party.
• Event planners checking a caterer’s plate price against the cost of the menu.

How the price per plate is worked out

• Portions = (adults + children × the child portion) × (1 + the extra for second helpings and waste).
• Food = for every dish, portion per guest × portions × its cost per kg, litre or piece. Pieces are cooked whole. A recipe’s cost per kg = what one batch costs (each ingredient’s quantity ÷ (1 − its trimming loss) × its price) ÷ what the batch makes.
• Cost = food + staff + rentals + other costs, with your overheads and contingency as a share of those direct costs.
• Price = cost × (1 + markup), or cost ÷ (1 − margin), divided by the plates billed (adults + children × the child price) and rounded up to your step — or your own plate price. A discount comes off before tax.
• Profit = the price before tax − the cost; the margin is the profit’s share of that price.

GST on catering in India

Outdoor catering — food and drink served at events, conferences, marriage halls and other functions that are event-based and occasional — is taxed at 5% without input tax credit (2.5% CGST + 2.5% SGST within a State, or 5% IGST), alone or with the venue rented with it, unless it is supplied at or by specified premises; then it is 18% with input tax credit. Specified premises are premises from which a hotel supplied rooms above ₹7,500 a night in the previous financial year, or premises a hotel has declared as such. The rules: Notification No. 20/2019-Central Tax (Rate) (serial 7 of Notification No. 11/2017-Central Tax (Rate)) and Notification No. 05/2025-Central Tax (Rate): specified premises.

A caterer that is not registered for GST charges no GST: choose No GST. Elsewhere the tax starts at your country’s standard VAT or GST rate; in the United States, type your state’s and city’s sales tax rate. Rates change with notifications and budgets, so check yours on the official site or with your accountant before you quote. This is an estimate, not tax advice.

Portions, children and the extra

The starter menus come with common starting portions for a buffet — for example 100–150 g of a main dish, 2 breads and 2 pieces of a sweet per guest — to adjust to your own recipes and serving sizes. Children are counted twice: their portion sets how much food is cooked and their price how many plates are billed. The extra covers second helpings and what is left in the dishes; plated service usually needs less than a buffet. The purchase list adds up every recipe’s ingredients for the event, with the trimming loss you entered.

One plate price or listed services

One price per plate folds the staff, rentals and transport into the plate, as most wedding quotations do. Food per plate, services listed shows the food per plate and then service staff, equipment and transport as their own lines, each with the same markup or margin, so a client sees what each part costs. Either way the internal costing sheet shows your real costs, which the client never sees.

Saved quotations, menus and your price list

Quotations and menus you save stay in this browser, and Quotation file moves one to another device. A price list (CSV or Excel with the columns Item, Unit and Price) fills in the ingredient prices of your recipes by name; a price for a pack such as 500 g or 12 pieces is read per kg or per piece, and the template shows the columns.

Limitations

• Every cost is yours: the tool holds no market prices, and the example’s costs are only example values to replace with your own.
• Up to 80 dishes, 40 ingredients in a recipe, 30 staff rows and 40 items in each cost list.
• Quantities and the purchase list follow the portions and recipes you enter; check them against your kitchen before you buy.
• Everything is kept in this browser on this device: clearing the browser’s site data deletes saved quotations, so keep a quotation file of the ones you need.

Privacy

On this device; its files download once

Your quotations, clients, menus, recipes and price lists stay in this browser on this device and are never uploaded. Your business details and logo are kept with the tool’s settings in this browser.