Catering Calc: Food Per Guest

You see the cost and the margin. Your client sees the price.

Catering Calc turns a headcount into the numbers a job actually needs: how much food to buy, what the whole event costs you, and what to charge for it. Then it writes the quote you send.

FREE: WHAT TO BUY Enter your guest count, the meal and the service style, and get per-person portions and total weights across protein, starch, salad, bread and dessert. Protein comes as a raw ordering weight with the cooked weight beside it. Starch is portioned cooked and converts to an order by type. Buffet, plated, family-style and a cocktail reception each change the numbers, child portions scale separately, and the buffer follows the service style.

Drinks and ice are free too: wine, beer and liquor by the bottle and the pack, soft drinks, coffee, and bags of ice. So are party supplies: plates, cups, napkins, cutlery, warming trays, tables, chairs and tablecloths, counted in the packs a shop actually sells.

Dietary counts are built in. Enter how many guests are vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free and the results tell you how much of the protein to substitute and where a gluten-free swap is needed.

The free tier needs no account and shows one banner ad.

PRO: WHAT IT COSTS AND WHAT TO CHARGE - Cost and margin: price the whole job at your own margin. Enter costs per pound, per head, or as a flat figure for the job, and see the total, the cost per guest and a price. - A client quote under your business name that never shows your cost, your margin or your rates. Service charge, tax, deposit and your own terms, on one page. - Staffing: servers, bartenders, kitchen and passers by service style, or exactly the crew you have booked. A role nobody booked is flagged, never added to the price. - The bar by the case and the bottle, with mixers and garnish, and a bar list you can hand to the client with no prices on it. - Rentals and equipment: plates by course to the supplier's sleeve, linens by diameter, china, flatware and glassware to the crate and the rack, tables and chairs. - Saved events, one per job, holding every course and station together and synced between your phone and the website. - A kitchen prep sheet, shopping checklists and a cost and margin sheet, as PDF or text, with none of them carrying what the client sees. - Your own house defaults on every calculator, used by every calculation until you reset them. - No banner ads.

BUILT AROUND YOUR NUMBERS, NOT OURS Every portion, ratio and buffer the app ships is a starting point rather than a standard. The values come from widely published catering rules of thumb and from one working caterer's own figures, and your own event history will beat both. Pro lets you set your house numbers once and then uses them.

WORKS WHERE YOU WORK Fast enough to use standing in a walk-in with a client on the phone. Your saved events and your business profile live on your account, so a plan you build on a phone is open on the desk when you sit down.

WHO IT IS FOR Off-premise and on-premise caterers, private chefs, venue and banquet staff, food trucks taking catered work, and anyone who has to answer "how much do I actually need?" before writing a quote.

Catering Calc gives planning estimates from published guidelines and the values you set. It does not replace your own judgment, your kitchen's history, or the food safety rules you work under.

Terms of Use: https://cateringcalc.com/terms

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