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 · July 14, 2026 (updated July 28, 2026)

Recipe Costing 101: How to Cost Out Any Recipe for Profit

If you don't know what each dish costs you to make, you're not running a food business: you're gambling. Recipe costing is the one skill that separates food businesses that survive from the ones that quietly bleed money for a year and then close. Here's how to do it right.

What Is Recipe Costing?

Recipe costing is the process of calculating the exact cost of every ingredient in a dish, so you know your true cost of goods sold before you set a price. It's not a rough guess based on what you "feel" a dish should cost. It's an itemized breakdown: every gram of flour, every milliliter of oil, every sprinkle of parsley.

The core formula is simple:

Recipe Cost = (Purchase Price ÷ Yield) × Quantity Used

Where:

Purchase Price is what you paid the supplier
Yield accounts for trim loss, shrinkage, and waste (edible portion vs. as-purchased)
Quantity Used is the exact amount in your recipe

Once you know the recipe cost, you can calculate your food cost percentage:

Food Cost % = (Recipe Cost ÷ Menu Price) × 100

For example: if a burger costs you $3.20 in ingredients and you sell it for $12, your food cost percentage is ($3.20 ÷ $12) × 100 = 26.7%. That's a healthy number. But if you forgot to cost out the bun, the sauce, and the pickle: and your true cost is $4.40: you're really at 36.7%, which starts to hurt.

Step 1: Build a Standardized Recipe First

You can't cost a recipe that doesn't exist on paper. Before you touch a calculator, write down:

Every ingredient by exact weight or volume (use grams: don't write "1 cup" for flour, write "120g")
The yield: how many servings the recipe produces
Any sub-recipes (sauce, dough, marinade) that need costing separately

A recipe that says "a handful of cheese" is uncostable. "28g of shredded mozzarella" is costable. Precision here is everything: vague recipes produce vague margins.

Step 2: Calculate the Cost Per Unit of Each Ingredient

This is where most people make mistakes. You don't use the price you paid for the whole bag: you calculate the cost per gram, per milliliter, or per unit.

Example: You buy a 5kg bag of all-purpose flour for $7.50.

5kg = 5,000g
Cost per gram = $7.50 ÷ 5,000 = $0.0015/g
Your recipe uses 300g → 300 × $0.0015 = $0.45

Do this for every single ingredient. A 4L jug of canola oil at $18? That's $0.0045/mL. Your recipe calls for 60mL → $0.27. The numbers add up, and they add up fast: which is exactly why you need to track them instead of estimating.

Step 3: Account for Yield and Waste

Raw ingredients shrink. A whole onion loses peel. A raw chicken breast loses water when cooked. Cooking oil gets absorbed or discarded. This is called yield loss, and ignoring it is one of the most common: and most expensive: mistakes in recipe costing.

Use a yield percentage:

Edible Portion Cost = As-Purchased Cost ÷ Yield %

Common yields:

Onions: ~89% usable after peeling
Boneless skinless chicken breast: ~80% cooked yield
Fresh spinach: ~40% after wilting

So if you buy chicken breast at $9.00/kg and it yields 80% after cooking, your real cost isn't $9.00/kg: it's $9.00 ÷ 0.80 = $11.25/kg. If your recipe uses 200g of cooked chicken, that's 200 × $0.01125 = $2.25, not $1.80.

That 45-cent difference per serving, across hundreds of covers a week, is the difference between a profitable kitchen and one that can't figure out why the numbers don't work.

Step 4: Don't Forget the "Invisible" Ingredients

Salt. Pepper. Cooking spray. The oil in the fryer. The parchment paper. These are called wrap items or incidental ingredients, and most operators either ignore them or guess.

A reasonable approach: add a 3–5% contingency to your calculated recipe cost to cover seasonings, fryer oil, and small disposables. If your dish costs $4.10 after itemized costing, a 4% contingency brings it to $4.26. That buffer keeps you from underpricing on the things you forgot to weigh.

Step 5: Add It All Up and Set Your Price

Sum every ingredient cost (with yield applied), add your contingency, and you have your total recipe cost. Divide by the number of portions to get cost per serving.

Now use the food cost percentage formula in reverse to set your price. If your target is 28% food cost:

Menu Price = Cost Per Serving ÷ Target Food Cost %

Example: cost per serving is $3.50, target food cost is 28%. $3.50 ÷ 0.28 = $12.50

That's your floor. Round to a menu-friendly price ($12 or $13) and then check what the market will bear. If competitors charge $15 for a similar dish, you may have room to improve margin. If they charge $10, you need to rethink your costs or your concept: not just slash the price and hope.

Step 6: Recost Regularly: Prices Change

Recipe costing isn't a one-time exercise. Supplier prices shift weekly. A case of eggs that cost $38 in January might be $72 in July. If you costed your brunch menu six months ago and never revisited it, your margins have likely eroded without you noticing.

Build a simple rule: recost your top 10 items every month, and do a full menu recost quarterly. When a key ingredient spikes more than 15%, recost immediately and decide whether to adjust portions, renegotiate with your supplier, or raise the price.

How Percy Plate Makes Recipe Costing Faster

Doing all of this by hand in a spreadsheet is slow, error-prone, and: as your menu grows: nearly impossible to keep updated. Percy Plate is a recipe costing tool built for small food businesses that automates the math: enter your ingredients and supplier prices once, and it calculates cost per serving, food cost percentage, and suggested menu prices automatically.

When egg prices jump, you update one number and every recipe using eggs recalculates instantly. You can get started with Percy Plate here and have your menu fully costed in an afternoon instead of a week.

Recipe costing isn't glamorous, but it's the foundation of every profitable food business. Know your numbers to the penny, update them regularly, and price with confidence.

Related Guides

Plate Costing: How to Cost a Plate Down to the Cent (Without Losing Your Mind) — Take recipe costs down to the single plate
How to Cost a Plate of Food: The Complete Guide — The complete plate costing walk-through
Cost Per Portion: The Formula Every Food Business Needs (With Examples) — The portion-cost formula with worked examples
Consignment Pricing for Cottage Bakers: What to Charge When the Shop Takes 20% — what the shelf price must be after a shop's 20% cut

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