Markup & Margin Calculator for Catering

Catering pricing requires a fundamentally different approach than restaurant menu pricing. In a restaurant, your overhead is covered by volume across hundreds of covers daily. In catering, each event must individually cover food, labor, transport, equipment, and a share of your fixed overhead, plus profit. The standard pricing formula is: food cost x 3 to 3.5 for the per-person price, which targets a 30–35% food cost and leaves room for labor (25–30%), overhead (15–20%), and profit (10–15%). But smart caterers price by event complexity, not just per-head. A formal plated dinner for 100 guests requires more skilled labor and equipment than a casual buffet for 200. This calculator is pre-filled with catering industry benchmarks so you can model your pricing across different event types and see how food cost percentage, labor allocation, and overhead coverage combine to create your real margin per event.