Recipe costing & GP calculator for UK kitchens
Free GP costing.
No sign-in.
Cost a dish, see the GP and get a menu price for your target.
Scan an invoice — 5 pages free
By a working UK chef · How GP is calculated
Free to tryNo account needed
Built on shiftBy a working UK chef
Yours offlineExcel & Google Sheets
Know the number
before service.
Replace the example with your own ingredients. The totals update here, in your browser.
Braised beef
Example recipe. Replace these ingredients and costs with your own.
| Ingredient | Quantity | Unit | Batch cost (£) | Remove |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Use the example without an account. Open the recipe tool to keep recipes, scale batches and print prep lists.
Quick answers
What is GP?
GP (gross profit) is what is left of the selling price after the food cost. A dish that sells for £8.40 ex VAT and costs £2.30 to make has a GP of £6.10, which is 72.6%. Use the GP calculator to check a menu price against a target.
How do you cost a recipe?
- List each ingredient with its pack price and pack size.
- Enter how much of each ingredient the recipe uses.
- Add up the ingredient costs to get the recipe cost.
- Divide by the number of portions to get the cost per portion.
- Compare it with your menu price (ex VAT) to see the GP.
The recipe costing calculator does the sums for you.
What is food cost %?
Food cost % is the cost of the ingredients as a share of the selling price (ex VAT). A £2.30 dish selling at £8.40 has a food cost of 27.4%. Food cost % and GP % add up to 100%.
Supplier prices up again? See which dishes slipped under your GP target.
- Scan supplier invoices, check the lines and save the prices you approve: 100 pages a month.
- See which dishes lose GP when a supplier price rises.
- Unlimited recipes synced across devices (up to 500).
Braised beef£1.79 → £7.18costs → sells
30–35% food cost.
That’s the line.
Know what the plate costs before it goes on the menu. Food costing, menu pricing and prep sheets for UK kitchens, built by a working chef. Free calculators run in your browser, with simple Excel sheets when you want the whole job done.
UK kitchens generally aim for 30–35% food cost, a 65–70% gross profit on the ex-VAT price. If you don’t know a dish’s number, you can’t know which side of the line it’s on.
Where this number comes from →Three useful jobs.
Free in your browser.
No account is needed to try them; choose the optional account only when you want recipe sync.
Browser calculator · no account neededFood cost & GP calculator
Type a recipe, get cost per portion and GP% instantly.
Open calculator →Recipe and prep workspacePrep sheet builder
Build and print a working prep list for your next service.
Open builder →Straightforward kitchen guidesCosting &
pricing guides
Work out GP, price a catering job and run a stock take.
Read the guides →Eleven jobs.
One honest price each.
One file per job. Excel and Google Sheets. Yours offline, for good. Each one has its own page with a worked example; checkout is through our Etsy shop, and the whole range is also on Etsy.
All spreadsheets 9 more tools
Read the write-ups first: all tools · Kitchen Pack
“If an £11.99 sheet saves one badly-priced dish, it’s paid for itself.”
I cost menus for a living. Every sheet in the pack is one I actually use: built on shift, fixed on shift. The same chef runs @offthepass on YouTube, where the cost-breakdown videos come off these exact spreadsheets.
The free tools do not need an account. Keep your numbers on this device, or choose the optional account when you want recipe sync.
Costing tips & new tools
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