Free food cost calculator
Enter what a dish costs you and what you sell it for to see its food-cost percentage and gross margin instantly. No login, no email — it all runs in your browser.
Free tool
Calculate your food cost
Type in a dish's ingredient cost and menu price.
Everything is calculated in your browser — no data is sent anywhere, and there's no sign-up.
How it works
Understanding the numbers
What food cost percentage means
Food cost percentage is the share of a dish's price that goes to ingredients: ingredient cost ÷ price × 100. A 30% food cost means 30 cents of every dollar covers ingredients, leaving the rest toward labor, overhead, and profit.
What's a good number?
It varies by concept — many full-service restaurants target roughly 28–35% — but the most useful thing is to know yours and trend it down over time. If a dish runs high, look at portioning, supplier prices, or the menu price before anything else.
FAQ
Questions, answered
Yes. There's no login, no email, and no limit. Everything is calculated in your browser.
It depends on your concept, but many full-service venues target around 28–35%. Knowing and trending your own number matters more than any benchmark.
No. The numbers you type never leave your browser.
Stop calculating by hand
Menulisa tracks these numbers automatically from your real sales, labor, and inventory — always current.