For restaurants, ghost kitchens, and meal-prep businesses. Add a dish's ingredients and its price, and see exactly what it costs you — food cost percentage, profit per plate, and margin, live as you type.
Most full-service kitchens aim for a 28–35% food cost. Under that isn't automatically good — it can mean a portion you could grow; over it, a leak worth chasing.
Doing this once is easy. Doing it for forty dishes, every week, as prices move is the problem Mise solves — snap a photo of each supplier receipt and every plate cost updates itself.
See what your menu actually costs →Food cost percentage is the single most useful number for pricing a dish. It's just the cost of what's on the plate divided by what you charge for it:
Take a wrap that costs $2.66 in ingredients and sells for $9.00. That's 2.66 ÷ 9.00 × 100 = 29.6% food cost — leaving $6.34 of gross profit on every one you sell. The calculator above does this for you, and works backward too: give it a target percentage and it tells you what to charge.
Most full-service restaurants aim for 28–35%. But it's a range, not a rule. A pizzeria or a bar can run food cost in the low twenties; a steakhouse runs higher and makes it back on check size. And "below average" isn't automatically a win — a very low food cost can mean a portion you could afford to grow, or a price your regulars would happily pay less resentment than you think. The number tells you where to look, not what to do. We pulled that thread apart in why your busy restaurant still isn't making money.
If a dish comes back heavy, don't reach for the price first. Work the cheap levers in order — it's the whole philosophy behind everything we write:
Why the food cost crept up when "nothing changed" is usually one of these hiding in plain sight — here's how to find it.
Food cost is food cost — whether you run a dining room, a delivery-only ghost kitchen, or a meal-prep business shipping boxes by the week. The math is identical; only what's hiding it changes.
Restaurants: a healthy check average can mask a dish that's quietly underwater — the calculator shows which plates actually carry their weight. Ghost and cloud kitchens: no dine-in traffic to hide behind, and the delivery apps take their cut off the top, so every order has to stand on its own food cost. Meal-prep and meal-kit companies: thin margins times high volume mean a point or two of food cost swings the whole week — cost one box before you price the menu. Want this kept current from your receipts automatically? See what your menu actually costs →
Divide the total ingredient (plate) cost of a dish by its menu price, then multiply by 100. A dish that costs $2.66 in ingredients and sells for $9.00 has a food cost of 29.6%.
Most full-service restaurants aim for a food cost of 28–35%. It varies by format — pizzerias and bars often run lower, while steakhouses and seafood run higher and make it back on check average. The right number is the one that leaves you a healthy margin, not a fixed rule.
Work the cheap levers before the price. Tighten the portion (the most common and most expensive leak), verify and negotiate supplier prices, reformulate a dish where the customer won’t notice, and only raise the menu price as a last resort.
Yes. A delivery-only ghost kitchen has no dine-in check average to hide a weak dish behind, and the delivery apps take their commission off the top — so every order has to carry its own margin. Enter each item’s ingredient cost and its listed price to see the real food cost percentage per item.
Yes. Add up the ingredient cost of one meal or box, enter your sell price, and you’ll see the food cost percentage and profit per meal. Meal-prep margins are thin and volume is high, so a point or two of food cost swings the whole week — check the number before you set your menu.
Yes, completely free with no sign-up. Add your ingredients and menu price and it calculates your food cost percentage, profit per plate, and margin instantly.