Pricing guide
How to price a catering job
Every catering quote is really the same piece of arithmetic: what a portion costs you, the margin you need, and the guest count. Get those three right and pricing stops being a gut feeling at 11pm. Here is how the number comes together, with plain whole-dollar examples.
Start per person, cost per portion
Almost every catering job is best quoted per person. It is the number clients compare between caterers, and it folds the sides, the service, and the consumables into one clean figure instead of a pile of line items. Per-item pricing has its place — add-ons, a dessert table, a drop-off tray a client buys by the dozen — but the headline price is per head.
Behind that per-person price, though, you are always costing per portion. A 50-guest buffet at $30 per person is a $1,500 event; the same menu delivered as a drop-off tray, with no staff on site, might be $24 per person, or $1,200 for the same 50 guests. Same food, two different products, two different numbers — because service is a real cost, not a favor.
A worked example: a 75-guest buffet
Say a client asks you to quote a 75-guest buffet. Build the per-person price from the bottom up, then multiply out. Every number here is an example — you would swap each one for your own real costs.
Per guest
| Ingredients | $9 |
|---|---|
| Labor — prep & service | $6 |
| Overhead — rentals, fuel, packaging | $3 |
| Loaded cost | $18 |
| Price at a 40% margin ($18 ÷ 0.60) | $30 |
Food-cost check: $9 of ingredients on a $30 price is 30% — right inside the common 28–35% rule of thumb.
Event total — 75 guests
| Food & service (75 × $30) | $2,250 |
|---|---|
| Delivery & setup (flat) | $175 |
| Event total | $2,425 |
On top of that event total you would add your service charge and local sales tax, then split it into a deposit that holds the date and a balance due before the event — the quote template lays those lines out.
Food cost is a check, not the method
You may have heard that raw ingredient cost should land somewhere around 28 to 35 percent of the menu price. It is a useful gut check — much below that and a client may feel the plate looks thin for the money, much above it and you are quietly paying for the party yourself. In the example above, $9 of ingredients on a $30 plate is 30 percent, right in that range.
But notice the order it happened in: the price came from the loaded cost and the margin, and the percentage was something you read afterward. That is the point. Food is only the visible cost — the labor and overhead folded into that $18 are just as real. Price from your loaded cost against the margin you need, then let the food-cost percentage confirm the number looks fair. The food-cost & margin calculator does this math for a single dish in a few seconds.
Put your own hands on the quote
The fastest way to lose money in catering is to mark up ingredients and forget the labor. Every job carries hours a client never sees: sourcing and shopping, prep the day before, the cook, setup, service, and the breakdown at the end. Two servers for a five-hour event at $30 an hour is $300 in wages before you have cooked a thing — and that is just the front of house.
Load a labor figure onto every portion, or add staffing as its own line on the quote, or both. What you cannot do is leave it off. A job that only pays for ingredients and margin pays for the party; it does not pay for you.
Charge for the drive and the throwaways
Delivery is never free — it is either a line on the quote or a hidden cost that makes your food look expensive. Break it out. A stated delivery and setup fee lets your per-person food price stay competitive while you still get paid for distance, timing, and the setup a client actually asked for.
The same goes for consumables: chafing fuel, foil pans, serving utensils, gloves, labels, trash bags. They never appear on the menu, but the event does not happen without them, and on a big spread they add up to real money. Cost the whole delivered order, not just the food, so a $14 boxed lunch is priced on everything that goes in the box and out the door.
Pricing catering quotes for weddings
Weddings are the hardest thing to price because you quote them months ahead, for a day that cannot be run twice. The per-plate price has to cover a great deal more than dinner: service staff, rentals like linens and glassware, the tasting you host to win the job, cake service, and the coordination hours around the event. A wedding priced like a large dinner party loses money on exactly the parts that make it a wedding.
Quote plated and buffet as two separate products rather than discounting one into the other, and break the extras — passed appetizers, a longer cocktail hour, late-night bites — into their own lines so the couple can see what each choice costs. Then protect the date: a deposit behind the booking and an expiry on the quote, so a number you gave in a quiet month cannot be held to on a peak Saturday.
Deposits, expiry, and getting to yes
A date is not held until money holds it. Put a deposit line on every quote — often a quarter to a half of the total — with a due date, and state the balance due date right beneath it. Give the quote itself an expiry, commonly thirty days, so an old price cannot resurface a season later.
Then make it easy to say yes. A quote a client can read on their phone and accept in one tap books faster than a PDF they have to print, sign, and email back. The faster the yes, the more likely the date is still yours when they decide — and the deposit can land the same evening the inquiry came in.
Price from your numbers, not a rule of thumb
CaterKit costs every recipe from your ingredients, loads labor and overhead, and prices the quote at the margin you set — then sends it as a branded link your client accepts on their phone. Free to start, no card.
Free tools, no signup: the price-per-person calculator and the food-cost & margin calculator.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you price a catering job?
Price per person from your real costs. Cost a portion with ingredients, labor, and overhead loaded in, set the margin you need, then multiply by the guest count and add delivery, staffing, a service charge, and tax. Finish with a deposit that holds the date and an expiry on the quote. Pricing per person keeps every job comparable and stops you from guessing at a total.
What is a good food cost percentage for catering?
Ingredient cost commonly lands around 28 to 35 percent of the menu price, but treat that as a sanity check, not a pricing method. Food is only the visible cost — labor and overhead are real lines too. Price from your loaded cost against a target margin, then check the food cost percentage afterward to see whether the number reads as fair for what is on the plate.
Should I price catering per person or per item?
Quote per person for most events — it is the number clients compare and it keeps sides, service, and consumables in one figure. Use per-item pricing for add-ons and drop-off trays where a client is buying a specific quantity. Behind the scenes you still cost per portion; per person is simply how you present the price.
How much deposit should I ask for on a catering job?
Enough that the date is genuinely held — often between a quarter and half of the total, with the balance due a set number of days before the event. Put the deposit amount and both due dates in writing on the quote. A verbal yes does not hold a date; money does.
How do I price catering quotes for weddings?
Weddings are quoted months ahead for a day that cannot be re-run, so build the per-plate price to cover far more than the food: service staff, rentals, the tasting you host to win the job, and coordination hours all live in it. Quote plated and buffet as separate products, break out the extras as their own lines, and protect the date with a deposit and an expiry so the price holds from proposal to invoice.