How to price catering plates: a simple formula for home caterers

You priced your first catering job to be kind — and now every customer expects that rate. Here's how to set prices that actually pay you, in a formula you can apply to every menu, every gig, every season.

The number most home caterers never calculate

It's your food cost percentage — what the raw ingredients of a plate cost as a share of what you charge for it. Restaurants run tight at 28–32%. Most home caterers, when they finally do the math, find theirs at 50%, 60%, sometimes higher. That's not a pricing strategy — that's working for groceries. The fix isn't to cook cheaper. It's to price properly.

Start with food cost, build up from there

The right price is built, not guessed. A plate's price comes from four ingredients — only one of them is food:

• Food cost — what the raw ingredients of one plate actually cost you at the store, receipts in hand.
• Labour — your prep + cook + plate-up + cleanup hours × the hourly rate you want to earn.
• Overhead — packaging, delivery gas, utilities, propane, dishwasher cycles. Typically 10–15% of the total.
• Profit margin — what's left for you after the first three. Aim for 15–25%; below that, you're running a hobby, not a business.

Add those four and you have a price. Need a shortcut? Divide your food cost by your target food-cost percentage: if ingredients cost you $4 and you want food to be 30% of the plate, the plate sells for $4 ÷ 0.30 = $13.33.

The hidden costs that quietly eat your margin

Three costs make home caterers' margins disappear without warning. Tasting and recipe development — the test batches nobody paid for. Free samples and "bonus" portions — the extra container you always throw in. Delivery time — the 40 minutes door-to-door that no one counted as labour. Track these for one month and add a flat 8–12% to every quote. You'll stop subsidising your own business out of your savings.

Per plate, per platter, or per person?

The same food can be priced three ways. The format you pick changes how the customer thinks about value — and how much you actually make.

• Per plate — best for individual orders, lunches, deliveries. Easy to compare, easy to scale up.
• Per platter — best for buffets and shared mezze. Hides the per-portion price, so richer items don't cause sticker shock.
• Per person — best for real events (weddings, corporate). Lets you bundle 3–4 dishes + dessert into one flat per-head rate.

Most home caterers earn the most from per-platter orders — the format gives you the most pricing flexibility while keeping the math simple for the customer.

Raising your prices without losing customers

Annual price increases are normal — your suppliers raise theirs every year. The trick is how you raise them. Don't email customers a new price list; redesign the menu. Bundle items, adjust portion sizes, swap a dish or two. A new menu with new prices reads as a fresh offer; a 10% bump on the old menu reads as a tax. And when you do raise prices, do it everywhere at once — never quietly on new customers only. Your loyal ones notice. They don't forget.

Caterers who reprice their menu once a year — even by 5% — earn 30–50% more over five years than caterers who hold prices flat to keep customers happy.