How to Price Catering Jobs (With Examples) (2026)

Short answer: price a catering job from the bottom up, not by guessing a per-head number. Start with your true food cost, then apply a multiplier of around 3x for full-service and 2.5x to 3x for drop-off, then add the line items the multiplier does not cover: labour (prep plus on-site staff), rentals and equipment, delivery and travel, packaging, a service charge, and a margin you actually want to keep. Take a deposit of 25% to 50% up front. The two worked examples below cost a 50-person drop-off and a 120-person staffed event line by line, so you can copy the structure and drop in your own numbers.

Why per-head guesswork loses money

Most caterers who struggle are not bad cooks. They quote a number that felt right, win the job, and only discover at the wash-up that the van fuel, the two servers, the hired chafers and the packaging ate the profit. Catering is not restaurant service with more chairs. You commit ingredients and labour days ahead, you often travel, and you frequently supply equipment and people that a dine-in cover never needs. If your quote only reflects food, every one of those costs is a silent loss.

The fix is a repeatable costing sheet. Build the quote as a stack of line items, price each one honestly, and let the total tell you the price. Do that every time and your winning quotes stay profitable and your losing quotes are the ones you were right to walk away from.

1. Start with your true food cost

Food cost is the raw ingredient cost of everything on the menu for the whole event, portioned for the guest count, with a waste allowance on top. As a benchmark, a single dish usually runs 28% to 35% of its menu price in ingredients, but for catering you cost the whole event, not one plate. Cost each menu item per portion, multiply by the number of guests, add 5% to 10% for waste and over-catering (running out is worse than a little surplus), and you have a food-cost figure you can trust.

If you have never built a costing sheet from ingredients up, our guide to how to calculate food cost walks through per-portion costing and waste allowances in detail. Get this number right first, because everything downstream is a multiple of it.

2. Apply the food-cost multiplier

The multiplier turns raw food cost into a food price that starts to absorb overhead and margin. The rule of thumb: around 3x for a full-service, staffed event, and closer to 2.5x to 3x for a simpler drop-off where you are not supplying servers on the day. So $1,000 of food at a 3x multiplier becomes $3,000 of food price.

Here is the trap that sinks people: the multiplier is not your all-in quote. It is the food line only. Labour, rentals, delivery, packaging, service charge and margin are added on top. Treating a 3x food figure as the finished price is exactly how caterers end up busy and broke. Use the multiplier to price food, then keep building.

3. Choose per head or per platter

Per head is cleanest when you know the guest count and are serving a full meal. It is easy for the client to understand and it scales: 80 guests at $42 a head is a number everyone can check. Per platter suits grazing, canapes, dessert tables and add-on trays, where guests graze and one platter feeds a known number of people. A common approach is to quote a per-head base for the core menu and price extras per platter, so the client can add a grazing table or a dessert platter without you having to re-quote the whole event.

Whichever you present to the client, cost the job the same way underneath: total food cost, multiplier, then the line items. Per head and per platter are how you display the price, not how you calculate it.

4. Add the line items people forget

This is where the profit lives or dies. The food multiplier covers food. Everything below is added on top, and skipping any of it is the single most common pricing mistake in catering.

• Labour, prep: kitchen hours to cook and pack, costed at a real hourly rate including your own time.
• Labour, on-site: servers, a chef or lead on the day, plus travel and setup time, not just serving time.
• Rentals and equipment: chafers, linens, glassware, crockery, tables, a marquee. Charge what it costs to hire or a fair rate to use your own.
• Delivery and travel: fuel, mileage, vehicle time, and a return trip if you collect equipment afterwards.
• Packaging and disposables: trays, boxes, foil, serviceware, labels. Cheap per unit, invisible if you forget it, real at volume.
• Service charge: a fixed percentage, often around 15% to 22%, for coordination and staffing overhead. State clearly it is a service charge, not a tip.
• Gratuity: discretionary and, depending on your policy and region, for the staff. Keep it separate and transparent on the quote.
• Margin: the profit you actually want to keep after all of the above. If it is not a line, it is not guaranteed.

The costing sheet at a glance

Here is the full stack in the order you build it. Copy this structure into a spreadsheet or a quote template and you will never forget a line again.

Worked example 1: a 50-person drop-off

A client wants a casual lunch buffet dropped off for 50 people: two mains, two salads, bread and a dessert tray. No servers, no rentals, you deliver and set it out. Here is the full costing.

Food cost works out to $9.50 a head for ingredients, so 50 guests is $475, plus a 10% waste allowance of about $48, for a food cost of roughly $523. At a 2.75x drop-off multiplier that is a food price of about $1,438. Now the added lines: prep labour is 6 hours at $30, so $180. Delivery and setup is 2 hours plus fuel, call it $90. Packaging (trays, foil, disposable serving spoons, labels) is about $70. There are no rentals and no on-site staff. A 15% service charge on the subtotal covers coordination.

That lands at roughly $41 a head for a drop-off, which is a sensible number for two mains and sides delivered and set out. Note how the food price alone ($1,438, or about $29 a head) would have badly undersold the job: labour, delivery, packaging and the service charge add another $12 a head that a food-only quote throws away.

Worked example 2: a 120-person staffed event

Now a wedding reception for 120: a plated or served buffet with three courses, on-site chef and servers, hired chafers, linens and glassware, and a 45-minute drive each way. This is where the full stack earns its keep.

Food cost is $18 a head, so 120 guests is $2,160, plus 8% waste of about $173, for roughly $2,333. At a 3x full-service multiplier that is a food price of about $6,999. On-site staff is one lead chef and four servers for a 7-hour call (including travel, setup and pack-down) at an average $32 an hour: 5 people x 7 hours x $32 is $1,120. Prep labour back in the kitchen is 14 hours at $30, so $420. Rentals (chafers, linens, glassware, crockery) come to $650. Travel is 90 minutes of round-trip driving plus fuel for a larger vehicle, call it $160. Packaging and transport containers are $120. A 20% service charge reflects the coordination a staffed event demands.

That comes to about $95 a head for a fully staffed three-course event with rentals, which is in the right zone for that level of service. If you had quoted off food alone you would have offered it near $58 a head and quietly absorbed the staff, rentals and travel, roughly $37 a head of real cost, straight out of your margin.

A per-head ready-reckoner

Use this as a sanity check against the number your costing sheet produces, not as a price list. If your bottom-up quote lands far outside the band for that format, re-check your food cost, your portions and your labour before you send it.

These are indicative bands and vary widely by region, menu and season. The point of the reckoner is to catch a quote that has drifted, for example a staffed wedding costed at $45 a head almost certainly forgot the staff or the rentals.

Always take a deposit

A catering job commits your ingredients, your prep time and often your staff days or weeks in advance. A deposit of 25% to 50%, taken when the client books, protects you against a late cancellation and signals a serious client. For large or bespoke events, stage it: a booking deposit to hold the date, then the balance due a set number of days before the event, with your cancellation terms written down. Taking deposits online at the point of booking is far cleaner than chasing invoices, and it removes the awkward conversation entirely.

If catering is becoming a real part of your business rather than the occasional favour, it is worth reading our wider restaurant catering guide for how to package menus and run the operations side, and how to start a catering business if you are setting one up from scratch.

Mistakes that quietly kill catering margins

• Pricing on food cost alone: the multiplier covers food, not labour, rentals, travel or packaging. Add every line on top or you are working for free.
• Forgetting travel: fuel, vehicle time and the return trip to collect equipment are real costs that never appear in a food-only quote.
• Underpricing labour: on-site staff time includes setup and pack-down and travel, not just the hours guests are eating, and your own prep hours count too.
• Skipping rentals: chafers, linens and glassware are either a hire cost or a fair use rate. Supplying them for nothing is a gift to the client.
• No deposit: catering without 25% to 50% up front means a late cancellation lands entirely on you after you have bought the food.
• Copying a competitor per-head price: their costs, portions and format differ from yours. Always build the number from your own costing sheet.
• Not costing a margin: if profit is not an explicit line, it is whatever is left over, which on a bad job is nothing. Price it in deliberately.

One more habit worth building: after every event, compare what you quoted against what it actually cost. Menu engineering is not just for the dine-in menu, and reviewing which catering packages truly earn their margin is exactly the discipline covered in our guide to menu engineering and pricing. Over a season, that feedback loop is what separates caterers who grow from caterers who just get busier.

Frequently asked questions

What is the food-cost multiplier for catering?
A common starting point is around 3x your raw food cost for a full-service, staffed event, and closer to 2.5x to 3x for a simpler drop-off. The multiplier is not your profit: it is meant to absorb some overhead and margin on top of ingredients. Labour, rentals, delivery, packaging and gratuity are still costed separately on top, because the multiplier alone rarely covers on-site staff or equipment.

How much should I charge per head for catering?
Per-head prices vary enormously by format, but a rough field guide is roughly $15 to $30 a head for a casual drop-off buffet, $35 to $60 for a plated or more substantial spread, and $75 and up for a full-service staffed event with rentals and servers. Always build the number bottom-up from your own food cost, labour and overhead rather than copying a competitor, because your costs and portions are different from theirs.

Should I quote per head or per platter?
Use per head when you know the guest count and the event is a full meal, because it is easy for the client to understand and scales cleanly. Use per platter for grazing, canapes, add-ons and drop-off trays where guests graze and one platter feeds a known number of people. Many caterers quote a per-head base for the core menu and price extras per platter, which keeps the quote flexible without giving away food.

Do I need to charge a deposit for a catering job?
Yes. A deposit of around 25% to 50% of the total, taken when the client books, protects you against last-minute cancellations and covers the ingredients and labour you commit ahead of the event. For large or custom jobs, stage it: a booking deposit to hold the date, then the balance due a set number of days before the event. Never cater a sizeable job on a promise to pay afterwards.

What costs do caterers most often forget?
The big three are labour, travel and rentals. On-site staff time, prep hours in the kitchen, mileage or delivery, and hired equipment like chafers, linens and glassware are all real costs that vanish if you price on food alone. Packaging, disposables, a service charge and a sensible margin round out the list. Forgetting any of these is the fastest way to run a full calendar and still lose money.

What is the difference between a service charge and a tip?
A service charge is a fixed percentage you add to the bill, often around 15% to 22%, that goes to your business to cover staffing, coordination and overhead. A tip or gratuity is discretionary and, depending on your region and policy, is intended for the staff who worked the event. Be explicit on the quote about which one you are charging and where it goes, because clients dislike surprises and staff dislike ambiguity.