Recipe costing and menu pricing tool

Recipe Cost Calculator

Calculate ingredient cost, scaled batch cost, cost per serving, labor, overhead, packaging, selling-price targets and gross profit. Enter the quantities and prices from your own invoices.

Currency symbolSymbol only; no exchange-rate conversion.

Original recipe yieldServings or sale units in the original recipe.

Target yieldAll ingredient quantities and costs are scaled to this yield.

Ingredients

Package and recipe units must belong to the same family: mass, volume or count. The usable-yield field accounts for trim, peel, drained weight or other loss.

Ingredient	Package amount	Package unit	Package price	Recipe amount	Recipe unit	Usable yield %

Operating costs and pricing

Overhead on ingredients (%)Utilities, spices or small consumables expressed as a percentage.

Labor time (minutes)

Labor rate per hour

Packaging per target serving

Other cost per target batch

Actual selling price per servingOptional; set to zero to omit actual-price analysis.

Target ingredient cost (%)Suggested price = ingredient cost per serving ÷ target percentage.

Target full-cost margin (%)Uses ingredients, overhead, labor, packaging and other entered costs.

Scaled ingredient cost—

Full target-batch cost—

Full cost per serving—

Price at target ingredient cost—

Price at target full-cost margin—

Scale factor—

Ingredient breakdown for the target batch

Ingredient	Scaled amount	Usable package fraction	Cost

How the recipe cost is calculated

Each package and recipe quantity is converted to a common base unit inside its family. Mass uses grams, volume uses milliliters and count uses individual items. Units from different families are not mixed because a cup-to-gram conversion depends on the ingredient’s density.

Ingredient cost: package price × recipe amount ÷ (package amount × usable yield). The recipe cost is then multiplied by target yield ÷ original yield. Whole-package purchasing cash is different from consumed ingredient cost; this calculator reports the consumed cost.

Full batch cost: scaled ingredients + ingredient overhead + labor + packaging + other entered batch cost. The target ingredient-cost price and target full-cost-margin price answer different questions and are shown separately.

Checked example

The loaded example costs a recipe made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, milk and vanilla. An original yield of 8 is scaled to 16. The original ingredient cost is $5.58 and the scaled ingredient cost is $11.15. With 10% ingredient overhead, 30 minutes of labor at $20/hour, $0.30 packaging per serving and $2 other cost, the full target-batch cost is $29.07, or $1.82 per serving. Minor displayed differences can occur because intermediate values are calculated at full precision.

Limits and practical checks

Use net usable package quantity when the invoice or label already provides it; otherwise enter an evidence-based usable-yield percentage.
Do not convert mass to volume without a verified ingredient density. Select compatible package and recipe units.
Prices, taxes, delivery, spoilage, market fees and labor policies vary. Include them explicitly when they apply.
The result is a costing model, not nutrition analysis, food-safety guidance, accounting advice or a guarantee of profit.
Rounding a menu price, buying full packages and minimum order quantities can change cash required even when consumed cost is correct.