Recipe and menu costing calculator

Cost any dish from how you buy each ingredient, by the kilo, the litre or the piece. See its food cost at your menu price once GST comes out, the price for any target, and save it to your own menu to see which dishes earn their place.

Free, no sign-upRuns in your browserChecked 28 October 2026

Start from

An example to see how it works, or a blank recipe for your own. Then name it and set how many serves it makes.

Plates, slices or portions

Ingredients

Tap one to change how you buy it and how much the recipe uses. Trim is what you lose before it reaches the plate: crusts, peel, stones, outer leaves.

Recipe$4.69

Your price

As on the menu, including GST$
More optionsAiming for a 30% food cost, price includes GST.
As a share of the price before GST. Most Australian guidance lands between 25% and 35%.%
25%30%35%
Almost always yes: dine-in food and anything hot is taxable. Turn off for a GST-free item or if you're not registered.

Cost per serve of Smashed avo on sourdough

$4.69

On target at 28.7%

Food cost is 28.7% of your $18.00 price ($16.36 before GST). Each serve leaves $11.67 towards wages, rent and profit.

Food cost at your price28.7%
Gross profit per serve$11.67
Price for a 30% food cost$17.50

Exactly $17.20 including GST, rounded up to the next 50 cents. At $17.50 the food cost is 29.5%.

Build your menu

Save this dish to compare it with the rest of your menu and see which dishes earn their place.

Where the cost of a serve goes

Each ingredient's share of the cost per serve, trim included. Tap a slice or a line for its figure.

Per serve$4.69

The examples use rounded Australian supermarket prices seen in 2026, as a starting point. Put in your own invoices. Most basic ingredients are GST-free, so the invoice price is the cost.

My menu

Save each dish you cost, then compare them side by side. Add last week's sales from your POS and the menu sorts itself into the dishes to feature, fix, promote or drop.

How to use it

  1. 01List the ingredients
    For each one, the pack price, the pack size and how much the recipe uses. Units convert for you: a 2 kg bag and 300 g, or a 4 litre tin and 10 ml. Add trim for what you pay for but don't serve.
  2. 02Set the price and target
    Your menu price as customers see it. You get the food cost now and the price your target needs; the target starts at 30% and can be changed under More options.
  3. 03Save it to your menu
    Save each dish, add last week’s sales from your POS, and the menu sorts itself into stars, plowhorses, puzzles and dogs. The method is the one in how to price your café menu.

Reading the answer, with the smashed avo example

The tool opens on smashed avo on sourdough, one serve. Units convert within a kind: weight to weight and volume to volume. Grams of something you buy by the litre won’t convert, because a litre of honey doesn’t weigh a kilo, so the tool flags it rather than guess. Things you buy by the piece, like avocados, lemons and eggs, use “each”: half an avocado is 0.5.

One serve of smashed avo
Two thick slices from a $5.20, 650 g loaf, 10% heels
$1.07
One avocado
$2.00
30 g of feta at $19.90 a kilo
$0.60
50 g of cherry tomatoes, $3.20 for 250 g
$0.64
A quarter of a $1 lemon
$0.25
10 ml of olive oil from a $55, 4 litre tin
$0.14
Cost per serve$4.69

Each line is rounded to the cent; the total is worked from the unrounded figures.

Its food cost at $18
Menu price, GST included
$18.00
Less GST (one eleventh)
−$1.64
Price before GST
$16.36
Cost per serve
$4.69
Food cost ($4.69 ÷ $16.36)28.7%

Each plate leaves $11.67 towards wages, rent and profit.

The price for a 30% food cost
Cost per serve ÷ 0.30
$15.64
Plus GST
$17.20
Rounded up to the next 50 cents$17.50

At $17.50 the food cost is 29.5%: rounding up means the dish lands at or under the target, never over.

Now try the banana bread. A loaf costs about $7.39 including the butter served with it, or 74c a slice. At $6.50 a slice the food cost is just 12.5%. That is not a sign the price is wrong. Cheap-to-make items like baking, toast and filter coffee are what let a café carry dishes that can’t hit 30%, and the price customers expect, not a formula, sets the ceiling.

Small things like salt, pepper and a pinch of chilli add a few cents. Leave them out, or group them into one line with a sensible allowance, so the list stays short enough to keep up to date.

Sorting your menu: stars, plowhorses, puzzles and dogs

A costing tells you about one dish. Menu engineering tells you about the menu: which dishes to feature, fix, promote or drop. It asks two questions of every dish in one section of the menu: does it sell? and does it make good money per plate? Money here is gross profit in dollars (price before GST less the cost per serve), not the percentage.

Press “Try it with a sample menu” under My menu to load the five breakfast mains from our menu pricing guide. With a week’s sales in, the dividing lines are the averages:

Where the lines fall for the sample menu
Serves sold across five dishes
350
Popularity line: average a dish (350 ÷ 5)
70
Gross profit for the week
$3,868
Profit line: average a plate sold$11.05
  • Stars sell well and make good money: the smashed avo (120 sold, $11.67 a plate) and the eggs benedict (80, $12.20). Keep them exactly as they are and give them the best spot on the menu.
  • Plowhorses sell well but make less: the big breakfast (95, $9.40). Nudge the price or trim a generous portion. 50c more is about 45c before GST, or $43 a week at 95 plates.
  • Puzzles make good money but don’t sell: the shakshuka (30, $13.10). Move it up the menu, rename it or have staff recommend it.
  • Dogs do neither: the chicken salad (25, $8.20). Take it off, unless it earns its place another way.

Compare like with like, breakfast mains with breakfast mains, and run it once a quarter and before any menu reprint. Your menu is kept in this browser, and the spreadsheet download holds every figure. A button under the menu carries its overall food cost, weighted by what sold, into the break-even calculator.

Where the example prices come from

The example ingredients use rounded supermarket shelf prices seen at Coles and Woolworths during 2026: plain flour at $2.40 for 2 kg, a 650 g sourdough at $5.20, fetta from the deli at $19.90 a kilo, cherry tomatoes at $3.20 a punnet, a 12 pack of eggs at $6.60, home-brand milk at $3.55 for 2 litres and a 4 litre tin of olive oil at about $55. Avocados, bananas and lemons swing with the season: supermarket avocados have sold for anywhere from about $1 to more than $5 each in different seasons.

They are there to show how the tool works, not to tell you what you pay. Wholesale suppliers, markets and cash-and-carry prices are often lower for bulk lines and higher for small orders. Put in your own invoices. The other four dishes in the sample menu have illustrative costs, set so their profit per plate matches the example in the menu pricing guide.

Coffee is costed differently, with waste, milk and cups. The coffee cost calculator does that, and how to price your café menu covers targets, menu engineering and raising prices without losing regulars.

Frequently asked questions

Most Australian guidance lands between about 25 and 35% of the food price before GST. Coffee supplier Zest Coffee suggests 25 to 35% (20 to 30% as healthy), and hospitality software company Loaded puts cafés at 28 to 35%, noting that cafés run higher food costs than restaurants but usually lower labour. Treat these as guides, not rules: a toastie can sit at 20% and a big breakfast at 35%, and the menu as a whole is what matters.
Divide the cost of one serve by the menu price before GST. Smashed avo that costs $4.69 to make and sells for $18 is $16.36 before GST, so its food cost is $4.69 divided by $16.36, or 28.7%. To go the other way, divide the cost by your target: $4.69 divided by 0.30 is $15.64, plus GST is $17.20, which rounds up to $17.50.
Without. Food eaten in your café and anything sold hot is taxable, so one eleventh of the menu price is GST that goes to the ATO. Your ingredients are a different story: basic foods like bread, milk, eggs, cheese, fruit and vegetables are generally GST-free, so their shelf or invoice price is the cost. If an item you buy does carry GST and you are registered, use its price before GST, because you claim that GST back.
The part you pay for but can't serve: crusts and heels of a loaf, avocado stones, banana skins, the outer leaves of a lettuce. If 10% of a loaf is heels you don't serve, two slices that cost 96c on paper really cost $1.07. To measure it, weigh an ingredient as it arrives, prepare it, and weigh what's usable.
Because recipes don't count waste, spoilage, staff meals, over-generous portions or stock that walks out the door. Compare the two: your actual food cost is opening stock plus purchases minus closing stock, divided by food sales before GST. A gap of a few points is normal. A big gap usually means portioning or waste, and that is cheaper to fix than a price rise.
A way to sort the dishes in one part of your menu by two questions: does it sell, and does it make good money per plate? Stars do both: keep and feature them. Plowhorses sell but make less: nudge the price or trim the cost. Puzzles make good money but don't sell: promote, rename or move them. Dogs do neither: take them off unless they serve a purpose. Profit here means gross profit in dollars per plate, not food cost percentage. Save your dishes to My menu and add last week's sales to see yours.
In this browser only, on this device. Nothing is sent to us or anyone else. If you clear your browser data or switch devices, the menu starts empty, so download the spreadsheet to keep a copy. A single recipe can also be shared as a link: the link holds the ingredients and prices.

General information for Australian cafés, not tax or financial advice. Whether a food item is GST-free or taxable depends on what it is and how it is sold; check with the ATO’s food and beverage search tool or your accountant. The example prices are illustrations only.

Sources

13 sources, 3 official

  1. 1ATO: GST-free foodato.gov.au · official source
  2. 2ATO: Taxable foodato.gov.au · official source
  3. 3ATO: Small business benchmarks, coffee shops (2023–24)ato.gov.au · official source
  4. 4Zest Coffee: 6 key benchmarks every café owner in Australia should know (February 2026)zestcoffee.com.au
  5. 5Loaded: What is a good food cost percentage in Australia?loadedhub.com
  6. 6Woolworths: Essentials plain flour 2 kgwoolworths.com.au
  7. 7BuyWisely: Helga's sourdough 650 g, price historybuywisely.com.au
  8. 8Grocerize: cherry tomatoes 250 ggrocerize.com.au
Show all 13 sources
  1. 9Grocerize: white sugar 2 kggrocerize.com.au
  2. 10BuyWisely: extra virgin olive oil 4 L, price historybuywisely.com.au
  3. 11BuyWisely: cage-free eggs 12 pack, price historybuywisely.com.au
  4. 12FreshPlaza: Australian supermarkets selling avocados for just $1 eachfreshplaza.com
  5. 13The Nightly: Coles to increase price of home-brand milk (April 2026)thenightly.com.au

Keep going

All tools and guides
GuideHow to price your café menuFood cost targets, coffee margins and how to price without scaring off regulars.Free toolCoffee cost and price calculatorThe true cost of every cup, from beans to lids, and the price that hits your margin.GuideHiring and paying café staffAwards, casual loading, super and rosters, explained for a first-time employer.