Free Tool — Recipe Costing Calculator
Recipe Costing Calculator
Add what each ingredient costs in the recipe to find the true cost of a recipe, per serving.
Total recipe cost (all servings)
₹85.00
Cost per serving
₹21.25
Suggested price per serving
₹70.83
Cost the recipe, not just the headline ingredients
Most menu pricing mistakes come from costing a dish on its 2-3 main ingredients and guessing the rest. Oil, spices, garnish and packaging are individually small but add up — and that gap compounds across hundreds of orders a month.
Add every ingredient in a recipe with what the amount you use costs you to get an accurate total cost and cost per serving. Once you know the real cost, use it alongside the food cost percentage calculator to set a menu price that protects your margin.
Recipe cost formula
Total recipe cost = sum of the Cost used in every ingredient row. Cost per serving = Total recipe cost ÷ Servings this recipe yields. Suggested price per serving = Cost per serving ÷ (Target food cost % ÷ 100). The cost per serving is your plate cost, the figure every menu price should start from.
How to use the recipe costing calculator
- 1Replace the sample rows (Paneer, Spices & sauces, Oil & garnish) with your own ingredients, typing each name in the Ingredient column.
- 2In Cost used, enter the rupee cost of the quantity that goes into this recipe, not the price of the whole pack. For example, 250 g of paneer from a ₹400 per kg block is ₹100.
- 3Tap Add ingredient for every extra item, including oil, spices, garnish and packaging. Use the cross next to a row to remove it.
- 4Enter Servings this recipe yields, the number of plates the batch actually produces.
- 5Set Target food cost % to the share of the menu price you want ingredients to take. It starts at 30%.
- 6Read Total recipe cost (all servings), Cost per serving and Suggested price per serving. They update as you type.
Worked example: costing a 10-plate batch of paneer butter masala
Say your kitchen makes paneer butter masala in batches of 10 plates. In the recipe costing calculator, enter five rows: paneer ₹400 (1 kg, so 100 g a plate), tomato, onion and cashew gravy ₹110, butter and cream ₹120, spices and kasuri methi ₹30, and oil and garnish ₹20. Total recipe cost is ₹680, and with Servings set to 10 the cost per serving is ₹680 ÷ 10 = ₹68. Paneer alone is ₹40 of that, more than half the plate cost, so a paneer price rise is the first thing to watch.
At the default 30% target, the suggested price per serving is ₹68 ÷ 0.30 = ₹226.67. A menu price of ₹229 keeps food cost just under target (₹68 ÷ ₹229 = 29.7%). If a 35% food cost suits your format, the suggested price drops to ₹68 ÷ 0.35 = ₹194.29. Once you settle on a price, check its food cost % and gross profit in the food cost percentage calculator.
Recipe costing mistakes to avoid
- Using an old purchase price. Vegetable, dairy and oil prices move week to week, so recost a dish whenever your supplier bill changes.
- Dividing by planned portions. Count the plates the batch actually gives after cooking and plating, not the number written on the recipe card.
- Skipping packaging on delivery dishes. Add the container, lid, bag and cutlery as their own rows when you cost the takeaway version.
- Costing a 100 g portion while the line plates 120 g. Weigh a few portions during service and correct the recipe quantities if they drift.
- Reading the suggested price as GST-inclusive. The calculator adds no GST, so treat it as your price before tax: add GST on top for a tax-exclusive menu, or check that a GST-inclusive menu price still leaves this amount after tax.
- Leaving out transport and loading charges. If you pay to bring stock in, spread that cost into the ingredient prices you enter.
Recipe costing calculator FAQs
Small ingredients like oil, spices, sauces and garnish are individually cheap but add up across a recipe, and across hundreds of plates sold each month that gap can meaningfully erode margin if it's never accounted for.
Divide by the actual number of servings or plates the recipe yields, not the number of ingredients used. If a batch recipe makes a base used across 10 plates, use 10 as the serving count.
No — this calculates raw ingredient cost only. Add labour and overhead separately, and consider both alongside ingredient cost when setting a final menu price.
This tool doesn't store data between sessions, so note down the cost per serving for each dish as you go. Setu Dine can store recipe costs against menu items permanently and update automatically as ingredient prices change.
Base the cost on the usable weight, not the weight you bought. If 1 kg of onions costing ₹40 gives 900 g after peeling, each usable kilo costs ₹40 ÷ 0.9 = ₹44.44, so 200 g of peeled onion in the recipe costs about ₹8.89. Enter that figure in Cost used. Apply the same logic to chicken on the bone, fish and leafy greens, where the loss is usually larger.
Enter the share of the menu price you can afford to spend on ingredients once labour, rent and other running costs are covered. The calculator starts at 30%, and many restaurants work somewhere in the 25% to 35% range depending on format. A lower target gives a higher suggested price: a ₹50 plate cost needs a ₹200 price at 25%, but only ₹166.67 at 30%.
Yes. Cost the base as its own recipe first: enter its ingredients and set Servings to the number of portions the batch gives, for example 20 ladles of makhani gravy. The cost per serving is then your cost per ladle. In each dish that uses the gravy, add one row with that per-ladle cost instead of listing the gravy ingredients again.
Yes. It is free to use with no signup or download, and it runs in any modern mobile or desktop browser. The ingredient rows, servings and target fields fit a phone screen and the results recalculate as you type, so you can cost a dish standing in the kitchen or at the market. All the calculation happens in your browser.
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