Saqib Hanif is the CEO and founder of Calculator Value. He builds calculators and educational content across sports, math, and science, and supports a limited set of construction-related calculators. Read full profile
The Restaurant Menu Pricing Calculator helps optimize menu prices using these industry formulas:
Menu Price = Food Cost ÷ Target Food Cost %Food Cost % = (Food Cost ÷ Menu Price) × 100Gross Profit = Menu Price - Food CostMarkup % = (Gross Profit ÷ Food Cost) × 100Example: With 30 dollars food cost and 30% target food cost percentage, your optimal menu price is 100 dollars.
Industry standard food cost percentages:
The calculator provides psychological pricing options (like 24.95 dollars instead of 25 dollars) and alternative price points to help maximize profitability while remaining competitive.
Are you a restaurant owner, chef or manager looking for a Menu Pricing Calculator that helps you choose the right pricing for each food dish or drink? Menu pricing is one of the most critical factors that directly affects profitability, competitiveness in the industry, and customer satisfaction.
In this guide, we are going to cover the following topics:
Menu pricing is the process of determining how much to charge for a dish or a beverage by considering the cost of ingredients and the desired profit margin. Good menu pricing ensures customer satisfaction while keeping the food business profitable.
In a restaurant, lower food costs can increase profit, but the balance between customer satisfaction, expectations, competition, and business profitability is essential.
Our calculator makes the process easier. You just need to enter the required values, and it will instantly calculate and display the result. If you are curious about how it's calculated, here is the formula used to determine menu pricing:
Menu Price = Item Cost / (Target Food Cost % / 100)
Example:
Imagine you're preparing for a chicken dish that costs you 5 dollars to make. So, your target food cost percentage is 30%. Let's compute the values in the formula:
Item Cost / (Target Food Cost % / 100)5 dollars / (30 / 100)5 / 0.3016.67 dollarsSo, 16.67 dollars is the calculated menu price for the chicken dish. You can also apply psychological pricing to adjust the pricing amount.
Psychological pricing is important because it influences a customer perception — like using 9.99 dollars instead of 10.00 dollars. So, these small adjustments to pricing often lead to more sales and customer satisfaction.