A catering pricing template costs an event from the plate up: food cost per head, then labor, rentals, delivery and overhead, then a margin. This free Excel version prices per head and per event, because the costs that erode catering margin are almost never the food - they are the staffing and logistics quoted from memory.
Download it free
Excel (.xlsx) - works in Excel, Google Sheets and Numbers. No email, no signup.
What's inside
- Per-head food costing - Menu costed by component, not guessed from a similar past event
- Event labor - Prep, service, travel and breakdown hours - the ones that get forgotten
- Rentals and logistics - Equipment, transport and delivery, priced rather than absorbed
- Margin check - What you actually keep after everything, per head and per event
How to use it
- Cost the menu by component. Do not price from a similar event you did last year - portions and prices both drift.
- Add every labor hour the event consumes, including prep the day before, travel, and breakdown after guests leave.
- Price rentals, transport and delivery explicitly. Absorbing them quietly is the most common way catering margin disappears.
- Apply your margin last, on the full cost, not on food alone.
- Compare quoted to actual after the event. That feedback loop is what makes the next quote accurate.
Where catering margin actually goes
| Cost line | Commonly underestimated by | Why it slips |
|---|---|---|
| Event labor | The largest single miss | Prep, travel and breakdown quoted from memory, not measured |
| Rentals and transport | Frequently absorbed entirely | Feels small per item, compounds fast across an event |
| Overproduction | Consistent overage | Padding portions to avoid running short in front of a client |
| Last-minute changes | Rarely re-quoted | Guest count moves, price does not |
Catering margin is almost never lost on food. It goes on labor hours nobody counted and a guest count that moved twice without the quote moving with it. If you only change one habit, re-quote when the count changes.
Prefer to run the numbers here?
The Catering Margin calculator does the same math in your browser - no download, no spreadsheet.
Open the calculatorFrequently asked questions
How do I price catering per person?
Start with food cost per head, add event labor divided by head count, add rentals, transport and overhead per head, then apply your margin to that full number. Pricing off food cost alone is the most common way caterers end up working an event for nothing.
What margin should a catering business target?
It varies by format - drop-off and full-service are different businesses with different cost structures. What matters more than a target number is that your quote includes every labor hour and logistics cost, because a healthy-looking margin on an incomplete cost sheet is not a margin at all.
Why does catering lose money on big events?
Because labor and logistics scale faster than the quote does. A doubled guest count rarely means doubled food cost, but it often means more than doubled staffing, transport and coordination. Re-cost large events rather than scaling a small-event price.
The template shows you the number. It won't fix it.
If the number comes back worse than you expected, that is a system problem, not a spreadsheet problem. Book a free Ops Screen and I'll tell you where it is leaking. If I don't find the leak, you owe nothing.
Book the free Ops Screen →Read next
- How Do I Price Catering Orders to Ensure Profitability?
- How Do Caterers Handle Large Orders Without Chaos?
- How Do I Set Up a Successful Catering Operation From Scratch?