Price the whole booking: food, the people doing the work, delivery and other job expenses, plus a share of your business overhead. Then choose how much you want left from the selling price. A food bill multiplied by a convenient number can miss work you still have to do.
This guide walks through one fictional 50-guest lunch. Use the costing worksheet to enter your own figures. Its Your job tab starts blank; Worked example contains the complete illustration. The worksheet calculates internally and does not connect to CaterScale or save anything in the app.
All example money is in CAD, before sales tax. Quantities, hours, rates, the contingency and the margin are invented to demonstrate the arithmetic. They are not recommended portions, wages, percentages or market prices.
01 / COST YOUR BOOKING
Define what the customer is buying
Write down the guest count, menu, portions, event date, location and service format before you calculate. A lunch dropped at one address has a different scope from a staffed buffet with setup, service and equipment collection.
Confirm what the price includes: food, packaging, delivery, staff, rentals and cleanup. Record service time separately from arrival and collection times. Note any information still awaiting the customer’s decision. Cost the scope you can actually describe and fulfil.
02 / COST YOUR BOOKING
Cost the food you will use
For each ingredient or recipe batch, multiply the event quantity by its cost per matching unit. Ten kilograms at CAD12 per kilogram costs CAD120; ten kilograms at a price per 500-gram pack needs a unit conversion first.
Use your own recipe quantities and supplier prices. Account for preparation and cooking losses when deciding the purchased quantity needed for the usable amount. If those losses are already in the quantity, avoid adding the same allowance again. BCcampus explains yield costing.
Include ingredients taken from stock. Allocate the portion used consistently. If this job forces an extra purchase that cannot realistically be used elsewhere, include that job-specific cost rather than assuming the remainder has value.
The worksheet uses whole-job quantities. Changing its guest-count field changes the per-guest display; it does not increase ingredient quantities, staffing or other costs for you.
03 / COST YOUR BOOKING
Count the full labour commitment
List the work from planning through packdown: quoting and purchasing, kitchen preparation, loading, travel, setup, service, cleaning and return trips. Use realistic planned hours for each person. Food-service labour planning is a separate part of managing cost.
Include your own time. An owner’s planning rate makes that work visible even when cash is not being paid as an hourly wage. For employees, use an estimated hourly cost that includes the employer costs applicable to your business. The worksheet does not calculate payroll, overtime or employment obligations.
Count each hour once. If a person’s full shift includes delivery, do not add those same hours again as a separate labour line.
04 / COST YOUR BOOKING
Add job expenses and overhead
Put packaging, job-specific kitchen hire, rentals, transport and similar items in Other job costs. Keep vehicle expenses separate from the driver’s time. Enter an estimate of payment-processing fees in its own field, using your actual provider terms and expected charges. Review that estimate after choosing a price, especially if fees depend on the amount collected.
Business overhead can include insurance, software, bookkeeping, marketing and ongoing premises costs that are not already charged to the job. Choose and record a reasonable allocation method. For example, CAD500 of relevant monthly overhead spread across ten comparable planned jobs allocates CAD50 per job. If those jobs do not happen, that allocation does not make the remaining overhead disappear.
Avoid counting a cost twice: kitchen rent already allocated through overhead should not also appear as the same rental expense in the job’s direct costs. BCcampus distinguishes fixed and variable operating costs.
05 / COST YOUR BOOKING
Keep a contingency separate
A contingency is a planning reserve for uncertainty, not a known bill or guaranteed profit. The worksheet applies your selected percentage to all entered costs, including overhead and the fee estimate. Enter 0% explicitly if you choose no reserve.
Use the reserve for uncertainty that remains after costing the job. Avoid using it to count ingredient waste, staff time or other costs you have already included a second time.
06 / COST YOUR BOOKING
Choose a margin and calculate the price
Here, planning margin means the amount left above the entered costs and contingency, divided by the selling price before sales tax. It is not an accounting gross-margin benchmark or a forecast of your business’s net profit.
The relationship is:
Cost allowance = entered job costs + contingency
Price before sales tax = cost allowance ÷ (1 − target margin)
Planning margin = (price − cost allowance) ÷ price
Margin and markup use different denominators. With CAD100 of cost, a 20% markup gives a CAD120 price and a 16.7% margin. A 20% margin needs a CAD125 price.
Choose the target yourself. The calculated price shows what your assumptions require; it does not prove a customer will accept it. Compare genuinely similar menus, portions and service, and consider your capacity and positioning. If the price does not fit the booking, revisit scope or costs before offering a discount. BDC’s pricing guidance covers costs, markup and market positioning.
07 / COST YOUR BOOKING
Work through the fictional lunch
The Maple Street sample lunch has 50 guests. These are invented planning inputs, not customer records or a staffing recommendation.
| Cost | Calculation | CAD |
|---|---|---|
| Food | Chicken 120 + rice 16 + vegetables 40 + sauce 24 + bread 30 | 230.00 |
| Labour | The five task allocations below | 560.00 |
| Other job costs | Packaging 60 + transport 35 + kitchen hire 80 + equipment hire 25 | 200.00 |
| Overhead allocation | This job’s planned share | 50.00 |
| Payment fee estimate | Fictional amount entered manually | 10.00 |
| Entered cost total | Sum of the five categories | 1,050.00 |
| Contingency | 10% of 1,050.00 | 105.00 |
| Cost allowance | 1,050.00 + 105.00 | 1,155.00 |
The planned labour is:
| Task allocation | Hours | Cost per hour, CAD | Total, CAD |
|---|---|---|---|
| Owner planning and purchasing | 3 | 30.00 | 90.00 |
| Owner kitchen preparation | 5 | 30.00 | 150.00 |
| Cook preparation and service | 6 | 25.00 | 150.00 |
| Assistant loading, setup and packdown | 5 | 22.00 | 110.00 |
| Owner travel and return | 2 | 30.00 | 60.00 |
| Total | 21 | 560.00 |
At the example’s chosen 20% planning margin:
1,155.00 ÷ (1 − 0.20) = CAD1,443.75
Rounded up to the next CAD5 = CAD1,445.00
1,445.00 ÷ 50 guests = CAD28.90 per guest
1,445.00 − 1,155.00 = CAD290.00 planned surplus
290.00 ÷ 1,445.00 = approximately 20.1% planning margin
The worksheet also lets you compare another total price. At CAD1,400, the same allowance leaves CAD245 and a 17.5% planning margin. If you change the menu, hours, supplier prices or delivery scope, update those inputs before relying on either result.
08 / COST YOUR BOOKING
Use the worksheet for your booking
- Open Your job and enter a booking reference, currency and whole guest count. Use one currency throughout; changing its label does not convert money.
- Fill the amber input cells with food quantities and unit costs, labour hours and hourly costs, and all applicable other expenses. Empty detail rows are unused. A partially entered row needs completing before its section can be totalled.
- Enter overhead, payment fees, contingency and your target margin. Use explicit zeros where an amount does not apply. The blank sheet does not supply a margin, wage or contingency benchmark.
- Choose the increment for rounding the total price up. The initial value of 1 means a whole unit of your currency; it is a convenience setting.
- Review the calculated total and per-guest amount. The optional price-comparison section shows the surplus and margin for a total you type yourself. A zero price has no percentage margin.
Food and labour need at least one complete row each. The available blocks hold eight food lines, six labour lines and six other-cost lines. Use a recipe or task grouping when appropriate. To extend a block, insert rows inside it, copy its formulas and verify the revised subtotal. Keep private internal costs out of customer-facing documents.
09 / COST YOUR BOOKING
Turn the calculation into a clear quote
Use the free catering quote template to describe the agreed menu, count, service, inclusions and total. Keep this internal costing sheet separate from the customer’s proposal.
Check the taxes that apply to your business and quote. The worksheet excludes sales tax and gratuities and does not determine tax obligations. If you round a per-guest amount for the quote, make sure its multiplied total matches the amount you actually intend to charge.
A requested deposit is part of the amount due, not an extra charge added to the booking price. Confirm the amount, timing and the remaining balance separately.
When a customer changes the booking, revisit both quantities and costs. Extra guests may require more food, another worker, a larger vehicle or a different kitchen slot. Keep the earlier approved quote identifiable while a replacement is being considered. Once the replacement is approved, prepare from that version using the prep and packing checklist.
10 / COST YOUR BOOKING
Compare the plan with what happened
After the job, compare purchases used, staff hours, hire, transport and fees with the estimates. Record what caused a difference before pricing a similar booking. A well-priced individual event does not establish business-wide break-even; ongoing costs and the number of bookings still matter. The SBA explains that broader calculation.
If you are setting up your first workflow, the guide for new catering businesses connects the next steps: menu, quote, customer approval and kitchen plan. Choose your prices and review your costs before entering a proposal into any software.