Cost per serving calculator — what each portion really costs
Whether you are meal-planning on a budget, deciding if cooking beats a takeaway, or pricing a dish for a café, the number that matters is the cost of a single serving. This calculator adds up your ingredient costs and divides by the number of portions to give you that figure, plus the total cost of the recipe.
How it works
It is simple arithmetic done cleanly: cost per serving = total ingredient cost ÷ servings. Enter the cost of the amount of each ingredient the recipe uses — not the
whole pack — and set how many portions it makes.
Worked example
A chicken-and-rice dish for 4 people:
- Chicken breast: 5.00
- Rice: 0.80
- Vegetables: 2.20
- Total:
8.00 - Cost per serving:
8.00 ÷ 4 = 2.00
At 2.00 a portion, cooking at home comfortably beats most takeaway equivalents.
Practical tips
Cost the amount used, not the pack. If a spice jar costs 3.00 and you use a tenth of it, enter 0.30. Portioning pack costs down to what the recipe actually consumes is what makes the per-serving figure trustworthy.
Price a menu with a margin. Once you know the ingredient cost per serving, apply your target margin to set a selling price — a 70% food-cost margin on a 2.00 plate means pricing around 6.67.
Compare recipes. Run a few dishes through the tool to see which give the best value per serving for weekly meal planning.
All calculations run entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded or stored.