Free tool
A per-head price with the people in it.
Your numbers
Prep, travel, service and pack-down — not just the hours on site.
Untouched, so we are assuming 25%.
What that means
Price per head
Includes an assumption$40
Carries a 25% margin we assumed. State your own above and this becomes arithmetic.
What it costs you, per head
From your numbers$30
Food as a share of that cost
From your numbers50.1%
If this is well under half, the food was never the expensive part — the people were.
Job total
Includes an assumption$3,195
Why it says that
Which half of the answer we actually know
Most calculators present everything they show you as a fact, including the parts they guessed. This one marks them.
From your numbers
Arithmetic on figures you typed. Nothing of ours is in it, so it is allowed to look certain — because it is.
Includes an assumption
A default of ours is in the sum. It is named, it is amber, and the working says what it is worth. Replace it and the number becomes yours.
This is how CaterCloud treats every number it works out, not a flourish for this page. An estimate that looks like an observation is a number you would quote a customer from.
Questions
What people ask
- How do I price catering per head?
- Add every direct cost of the job — food, crew hours at what you actually pay, travel, hire — divide by the guest count, then apply the margin you want. The order matters: margin on the price, not mark-up on the cost.
- What is the difference between margin and mark-up?
- A 25% margin means a quarter of the price is left over. Getting that from cost needs a 33% mark-up. Confusing the two is the most common way a catering price comes out too low.
- Should I charge for prep time?
- Yes, and this calculator assumes you will — the crew hours field asks for prep, travel, service and pack-down, not just the hours on site. Prep is the time most operators leave out and then wonder where the margin went.
- Does this include my overheads?
- No. Insurance, the kitchen, your admin hours and the accountant are not here; they have to be recovered across every job rather than charged to one. CaterCloud does that per event.