How to Price Catering: Per-Person Menus That Make Money

Catering pricing goes wrong in one predictable way: everything gets stuffed into a single per-person number until it can't breathe. The fix is to price food as food, and everything else as everything else.

Start with the plate, same as a restaurant

Cost the menu per person exactly like a dish: recipe-cost each item, multiply by the planned portion, sum. A taco bar might run: protein $2.90, tortillas $0.45, rice and beans $0.85, toppings and salsas $1.10 — $5.30 per head, yield-adjusted.

Catering food targets run 25–30% food cost— lower than a restaurant's 28–35%, because the catering price has to carry costs a restaurant doesn't bill per plate: transport, equipment wear, proposal time, and the risk of a canceled Saturday. $5.30 at 28% prices the taco bar at $18.93 → $19 per person.

What never goes inside the food price

• Staff — billed as labor line items (server × hours × rate). Buried staffing is margin you gave away.
• Rentals — tables, linens, china: pass-through plus a handling percentage.
• Delivery and setup — a real fee tied to distance and crew time.
• Service charge — 18–22% on food and beverage, stated plainly (and decide once whether it's house revenue or gratuity — then say so on every proposal).

Itemizing isn't just margin protection — clients compare per-person food prices against competitors who itemize. A $34 all-in number loses to a “$22/person” bid that bills the same total once staff and delivery land on the invoice.

Minimums make small events worth doing

Your kitchen mobilizes the same for 20 guests as for 60. Set a revenue minimum per event (say $750): under it, the client pays the minimum anyway. It converts “small job, lost money” into “small job, fine.”

The worked example, end to end

60 guests, taco bar. Food: 60 × $19 = $1,140 (cost $318, 27.9%). Two servers × 5 hrs × $35 = $350. Delivery $75. Service charge 20% on food = $228. Invoice: $1,793 — and every line defends itself.

The number that makes this work is the $5.30 — and it's only true the week your ingredient prices are current. Freecost keeps per-person menu costs live, so a February quote for a June wedding gets re-checked in thirty seconds, not re-guessed.