What does each plate really cost you?
Enter what you pay and what each recipe uses. Get cost per portion, food cost % and a menu price for your target. For restaurants, cafés, bakeries, food trucks and home kitchens.
How it works
Enter what you buy
Type the price and size of the pack you buy, like a 5 lb bag or a case of 48. Add the yield: the share you can use after trimming and waste.
Enter what the recipe uses
Type how much goes into the recipe, in any unit. Platecost converts it to the pack unit. Set how many portions the recipe makes.
Check the menu
Set your target food cost %. Platecost suggests a price, shows margin per plate, and marks items above the target. Export a recipe card, a report or a CSV.
Pricing
The free tool is complete. Kitchen adds saving and shared prices for people who cost a lot of recipes.
Free
$0
- Every recipe and menu calculation on this page
- Unit conversion, yield and density
- Recipe card, menu report and CSV export
- Works in this tab only. Nothing is saved.
Kitchen
$7.99 per month
- Saved recipes between visits
- Update a supplier price once, and every recipe that uses it changes
- More than one location, each with its own prices
Not open yet. There is no checkout.
Questions
Is this accounting or tax advice?
No. Platecost does arithmetic on the numbers you type. It does not know your rent, labor or taxes. Check pricing decisions with your accountant.
Does my data leave this page?
No. All math runs in your browser. Platecost sends nothing anywhere. It only remembers your theme and language choice.
What target food cost % should I use?
Platecost does not pick one for you. It depends on your rent, labor, and what you sell. Use a number from your own books, or ask your accountant. The 30% in the example is just a setting.
What is yield %?
It is the share of what you buy that ends up in food. If you peel bananas and keep 65% of the weight, the yield is 65%. Platecost divides by the yield, so a lower yield means a higher cost.
Why does it ask for density?
Cups and grams measure different things. To turn 2 cups of flour into grams, Platecost needs to know how many grams one milliliter of your flour weighs. Weigh a cup at your kitchen and divide by 236.59 ml. Platecost never guesses this number.
Are the unit conversions exact?
Yes. Platecost uses US customary units: 1 lb = 453.59237 g, 1 oz = 28.349523125 g, 1 fl oz = 29.5735295625 ml, 1 cup = 8 fl oz, 1 tbsp = ½ fl oz, 1 tsp = ⅓ tbsp. These come from the definitions in NIST Handbook 44. See Sources.
Should the menu price include sales tax?
Type the price before sales tax, the amount you keep. Otherwise the food cost % will look lower than it is.
Sources
Checked as of November 13, 2026.
- NIST Handbook 44 (2026), Appendix C: General Tables of Units of Measurement. 1 lb = 453.592 37 g exactly; 16 oz = 1 lb; 1 in = 2.54 cm exactly; 1 US gallon = 231 cubic inches exactly; 1 cup = 8 fl oz, 1 tbsp = ½ fl oz, 1 tsp = ⅓ tbsp, all exact. The ml values above follow from these.
- Basic Kitchen and Food Service Management, Chapter 8: Menu and Recipe Pricing (BC Cook Articulation Committee). Food cost % = portion cost ÷ selling price. Selling price = portion cost × (1 ÷ food cost %). Platecost uses these formulas.