Percy Plate is a web-based food cost calculator for food trucks, caterers, cottage food producers, and small restaurant owners. It lets you enter your ingredients and what you pay for them, build recipes, and instantly see the cost per serving and recommended sell price based on your target food cost percentage.

Yes. Percy Plate has a free plan that lets you create up to 10 ingredients and 5 recipes to calculate food cost. A paid subscription ($14.99/month or $119.99/year) unlocks unlimited ingredients and recipes plus inventory tracking, revenue reporting, menu engineering, Prime Cost, AI invoice scanning, FDA nutrition facts labels, FDA ingredient labels, and label printing.

How does Percy Plate calculate food cost?

You enter each ingredient, the unit you buy it in (lb, oz, gallon, etc.), and what you pay per unit. When you build a recipe, Percy Plate converts the recipe quantities to your purchase units, calculates the cost of each ingredient used, and divides by the number of servings to give you a cost per serving. It also shows the food cost percentage and a suggested sell price.

Can Percy Plate generate nutrition facts labels?

Yes. Percy Plate can look up nutrition data from the USDA FoodData Central database for each ingredient, then automatically calculate the per-serving nutrition for a recipe. It generates an FDA-format Nutrition Facts panel that can be printed directly to thermal labels (Brother, Dymo, Zebra) or Avery sheet labels in sizes 2x4 inch and 3.33x4 inch.

Can Percy Plate generate an ingredient list label?

Yes. Percy Plate generates an FDA-compliant ingredient label that lists ingredients by weight (heaviest first), automatically detects the top 9 FDA allergens, and includes your business name and net weight. Labels can be printed to thermal printers or Avery sheet labels.

What label printers work with Percy Plate?

Percy Plate supports thermal label printers including Brother QL series (DK-1202 2x4 inch labels), Dymo LabelWriter (30334 and similar), and Zebra desktop printers. It also supports Avery 5163 (2x4 inch) and Avery 5164 (3.33x4 inch) sheet labels for standard desktop printers.

Who is Percy Plate designed for?

Percy Plate is designed for small food business owners including food truck operators, cottage food producers, caterers, small restaurant owners, and anyone who sells homemade or prepared food and needs to track ingredient costs, price their menu, and produce product labels.

Does Percy Plate work on mobile?

Yes. Percy Plate is a web application that works on any device with a modern browser, including phones and tablets. You can look up ingredient costs, update recipe quantities, and check your food cost percentage from anywhere.

How do you calculate food cost percentage?

Food cost percentage = (ingredient cost per serving ÷ menu price) × 100. For example, if your ingredients cost $3.50 and you sell the dish for $12.00, your food cost percentage is 29.2%. Most food businesses target 28–35%. To set a price from a target, divide ingredient cost by your target: $3.50 ÷ 0.30 = $11.67 suggested price at 30% food cost.

What is a good food cost percentage for a small food business or bakery?

Most food businesses target a food cost percentage between 28% and 35%. Bakeries and cottage food producers often achieve lower food cost percentages (20–28%) because flour, sugar, and butter are inexpensive relative to retail prices. Full-service restaurants tend to run 30–35%. The right target depends on your labor costs, overhead, and pricing power in your market.

How do I calculate the cost per serving of a recipe?

Add up the ingredient cost for the full batch, then divide by the number of servings. For each ingredient, multiply the quantity used by the cost per unit (converting units as needed). For example: 8 oz flour at $0.89/lb = $0.89 ÷ 16 × 8 = $0.44. Sum all ingredient costs, then divide by servings. Percy Plate does this calculation automatically once you enter your ingredient prices and recipe quantities.

How does yield percentage affect recipe costing?

Yield percentage accounts for trim loss, cooking shrinkage, and waste. If you buy 1 lb of chicken but only 0.75 lb is usable after trimming, your yield is 75%. To get accurate food costs, divide the as-purchased cost by the yield percentage: $4.00/lb ÷ 0.75 = $5.33 per usable pound. Percy Plate lets you set a yield percentage (AP to EP) on any ingredient so your recipe costs reflect what you actually use.

What is the best recipe costing software for a small food business?

The best recipe costing software for a small food business depends on your needs. Percy Plate ($14.99/month) is built specifically for cottage food producers, food trucks, caterers, and small restaurants — it includes recipe costing, menu pricing, FDA ingredient labels, nutrition facts labels, inventory tracking, and revenue reporting. Competitors like meez start at $24/month and scale to $199/month. Square and Toast do not include recipe costing natively.

Is there free recipe costing software for home bakers or cottage food businesses?

Yes. Percy Plate has a free plan that includes recipe food cost calculation and menu pricing suggestions. The free plan lets you create up to 10 ingredients and 5 recipes. For unlimited recipes, FDA labels, nutrition facts, and inventory tracking, the paid plan is $14.99/month or $119.99/year. No credit card is required to start.

How do I price homemade baked goods to make a profit?

Start with your ingredient cost per batch, then divide by the number of units to get ingredient cost per item. Add packaging (boxes, bags, labels) as a per-unit cost. Then set a target food cost percentage — most cottage food bakers aim for 25–35% — and divide your total ingredient cost by that percentage to get a minimum price. For example: $0.85 ingredient cost per cookie ÷ 0.30 = $2.83 minimum price at 30% food cost. Factor in your time and overhead to ensure you are actually profitable, not just covering ingredients.

What are the labeling requirements for cottage food products?

Most states require cottage food labels to include: (1) the product name, (2) your name and home address, (3) a list of ingredients in descending order by weight, (4) a disclosure statement such as 'Made in a home kitchen not inspected by the state or local health department,' and (5) allergen declarations for any of the 9 major FDA allergens present. Some states also require net weight. Requirements vary by state — check your state's cottage food law for specifics. Nutrition Facts panels are generally not required for cottage food operations below a certain revenue threshold.

Do I need a nutrition facts label on my cottage food products?

Most cottage food producers are exempt from FDA Nutrition Facts label requirements under the small business exemption (fewer than 100 full-time employees and fewer than 100,000 units sold annually). However, you must still list ingredients in descending order by weight and declare all major allergens. Some states impose additional requirements. When in doubt, check your state's cottage food law and the FDA's small business labeling exemptions.

What allergens must I disclose on a homemade food label?

FDA requires disclosure of 9 major food allergens: milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame. These must be declared on all food labels, including cottage food products — even if a full Nutrition Facts panel is not required. The standard format is a 'Contains:' statement after the ingredient list, for example: 'Contains: Wheat, Eggs, Milk.' Percy Plate detects all 9 allergens automatically from your ingredient names.

How do I create a nutrition facts label for homemade food?

To create a Nutrition Facts label for homemade food: (1) look up the nutrition data for each ingredient using the USDA FoodData Central database, (2) calculate the per-serving amounts for calories, fat, carbohydrates, protein, sodium, and other nutrients, (3) format the panel according to FDA guidelines with serving size, servings per container, and daily value percentages. Percy Plate automates this — it looks up USDA nutrition data for your ingredients, calculates per-serving totals, and generates a print-ready FDA-format Nutrition Facts label for thermal or sheet labels.

How do I list ingredients in the correct order on a food label?

FDA regulations require ingredients to be listed in descending order by weight — the ingredient present in the greatest amount by weight must appear first. For example, if your muffin contains more flour than sugar, flour must be listed first. Sub-ingredients (like those in a chocolate chip) must be listed in parentheses immediately after the component. Percy Plate sorts ingredients automatically by weight when generating your label.

What information is required on a homemade food product label?

A complete homemade food label generally requires: (1) the name of the food, (2) the net quantity (weight or count), (3) an ingredient list in descending order by weight, (4) allergen declarations for all 9 major FDA allergens, (5) your business name and address, and (6) for cottage food specifically, a state-required disclosure statement such as 'Made in a home kitchen not inspected by the state health department.' Nutrition Facts panels are usually optional for small cottage food producers below certain revenue thresholds.

By Heidi Macomber · October 13, 2026

Holiday pre-orders are opening. Run this math before you say yes to any of them.

Between now and the end of December, cottage bakers and small kitchens will field the same question dozens of times: "Are you taking pie orders for Thanksgiving?" The money in holiday season is real, and so is the trap. It is easy to say yes to every order in October and discover in the third week of November that the math never worked. Here is the math to run first, using one pie and one cookie tray as the examples. Ingredient prices are examples from a typical 2026 grocery run; swap in your own receipts.

The per-unit cost, before anything else

Take a 9-inch pumpkin pie, the workhorse of the season. Count everything that goes into it:

Pumpkin (one 15 oz can): $2.29
Evaporated milk (one 12 oz can): $1.69
Eggs (2): $0.66
Sugar (3/4 cup): $0.29
Spices and salt: $0.35
All-butter crust (flour, butter, water): $1.22

That is $6.50 in ingredients for one pie. At a $26 farmers market price, that is a 25% food cost, and $19.50 left over from each pie to pay for your time, your oven, your packaging, and your booth or delivery. If your ingredient total comes out higher, the pie price has to rise with it. The food cost percentage tells you whether the price kept up with your ingredient costs. The leftover dollars have a name: contribution dollars. That $19.50 is what one pie contributes toward every cost besides ingredients, and once those costs are covered, what remains is your pay.

A cookie tray goes through the same math. A 4-dozen assorted tray with $18 of ingredients and $2.50 of tray and wrap costs $20.50 all in. At $44, that is 47% food cost, which is normal for cookies, with $23.50 of contribution. The percentage looks worse than the pie and the dollars look better. Holiday decisions should be made on both numbers, side by side.

Deposits are part of the math

A holiday pre-order is an agreement built on two promises: the customer promises to come back and pay, and you promise to have the order baked and set aside. A 50% deposit, collected when the order is placed, does three things: it covers your ingredient shopping before you spend a Saturday baking, it filters out the maybes, and it settles the abandonment problem before it exists, because every baker who takes orders without one eventually bakes for someone who never shows up to pick up. If taking deposits feels awkward, fold it into the ordering step: "I can hold that for you with half down, and the balance is due at pickup."

Your oven is the real order cap

The most common holiday failure is counting orders and never counting oven hours. Your real capacity for the season is the number of oven slots you can fill, and that number can be counted before you take a single order:

Pies per slot: 2 (a standard home oven fits two 9-inch pies comfortably)
Time per slot: about 75 minutes with rotation and rest
Slots per bake day: 8 in a ten-hour day if nothing else is happening, 5 or 6 in a realistic one

Two pies per slot, six slots, across the four bake days before Thanksgiving is 48 pies. That number is your order cap. When the requests pass it, the answer is a waitlist for the next pickup day. A fifth bake day at 2 a.m. is the other option, and it costs you sleep in the busiest week of your year. Food trucks and caterers run the identical calculation with fryer baskets, sheet pans, or cooler space standing in for oven slots.

Write every order the same way

Quantity, flavors, pickup day and time window, deposit collected, balance due. Give each order its own line, and keep every line in the same single place: one notebook or one spreadsheet. Disputes shrink to zero when the pickup window was written down at order time, and the busiest week of your year is the wrong time to be reconstructing what someone thinks they ordered in a Facebook comment thread.

Run the per-unit cost, set the deposit rule, count the oven slots, and open the order book with a cap on it. The season pays better when it ends on time.

Related Guides

A Bulk Order Lands in Your Inbox. Here Is the Math Before You Say Yes. - The same say-yes math for one big order instead of a season of pre-orders
You Just Got Your Cottage Food License. Here Is the Math to Do Before Your First Market - Pricing math for cottage bakers starting out
How to Price Baked Goods: A Guide for Cottage Food Operators - Setting base prices for baked goods

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