Tool 1 of the Get Paid Kit · For caterers

Caterer hourly rate calculator

This free calculator works out the hourly rate a freelance caterer should charge, starting from the income you need — pricing your labour honestly, with the food kept where it belongs: on its own line. A per-head price hides two different things, your hours and the client’s ingredients, and every menu change quietly eats whichever one was priced by guesswork. With the honest presets below the rate lands near $102 an hour, $818 for a full day — and the conversion couples actually buy: a 100-guest wedding carries about $2,652 of your labour, roughly $26.52 a head, before a single ingredient is priced.

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The pricing reality for freelance caterers

Catering is quoted per head, but the per-head number does two jobs that obey different rules. The food is a pass-through: it scales with the menu and the guest count, and the client can see it in every quote they collect. Your labour does not scale the same way at all — a hundred guests is not twice the work of fifty, and the shopping, prep, service and pack-down hours follow the event’s shape, not its headcount. Price the two as one blended figure and you cannot tell which half a menu upgrade just ate.

The week around an event is the second reality. Event days are twelve-hour realities that bill; the tastings, menu planning, supplier runs and quotes around them mostly do not — including the quotes for events you never win, cooked and written on your time. Quiet months still carry the commissary rent and the insurance. The presets below use a 52% billable share: the event days bill in full, and nearly half the working year is the unpaid machinery that makes them possible.

The numbers below are starting presets, not a survey: a $58,000 target income, $15,900 a year of expenses — commissary kitchen rent leads, with equipment, vehicle, insurance and food-safety licences, tastings and menu development, marketing and disposables — a 22% tax estimate and 52% billable time. Notice what is not in the expenses: ingredients. Food is the client’s cost line on the invoice, never a cost hiding inside your rate. With those starting numbers the calculator lands near $102 an hour.

Your numbers — caterer presets

Your recommended rate

$0 / hour
$0Day rate (8 hours)
0Billable hours per year
Income + expenses needed$0
Grossed up for tax$0
With profit margin$0
Working weeks0
Total working hours0
Billable hours0

Your rate is saved on this device only, so the Proposal Generator can show it when you price a project.

Easy to miss

Costs caterers forget to put in the rate

  • The tasting. A full menu cooked for two people who may never book. Tastings are carried in these presets as a business cost — the moment they are free, unlimited and cooked for every enquiry, they eat the rate a plate at a time.
  • Quotes for events you do not win. Menu planning, costing, supplier prices checked, the proposal written. A caterer’s conversion rate means a steady share of the working year is skilled unpaid labour — it lives in the billable percentage, where it belongs.
  • Commissary rent in quiet months. The licensed kitchen is not optional and it does not pause for the off-season. Rent in a month with no events comes out of the months that have them — the rate has to average the year, not the good weekends.
  • Equipment wear and replacement. Hot boxes, chafing dishes, serving kit, knives, the van’s refrigeration. Event kit is damaged, lost and worn on a cycle, and the cycle is paid from the same rate as everything else.
  • Pack-down and the day after. The event ends for the guests at midnight; for you it ends when the kit is washed, counted, returned and the leftovers dealt with. Those hours are part of the event’s labour, not a favour after it.
The maths

How this calculator works

Start with the hours you can genuinely sell. Take 52 weeks, subtract your vacation weeks, multiply by your hours per week, then multiply by your billable percentage. With the caterer presets — three weeks off, 40 hours a week, 52% billable — that is 1,019 billable hours a year: the event-day hours clients can pay for, once the tastings, quotes, planning and quiet months have taken theirs.

Next, work out what those hours must bring in. Add your desired income and your annual business expenses together — $73,900 on the presets — gross the total up for tax by dividing by one minus your tax rate — at a 22% estimate, divide by 0.78 to get $94,744 — then add your profit margin to reach $104,218 and divide by your billable hours. That final number, $102, is the rate below which the year stops adding up.

Now translate the hour into the per-head language clients buy — keeping the two halves visibly separate. A 100-guest wedding runs to about twenty-six hours of your labour: three of shopping and supplier runs, ten of prep, nine on the day, four of pack-down and cleaning. At $102 that is $2,652 of labour — $26.52 a head — quoted as the labour line, with the ingredients priced as their own line at cost on top. A smaller party shows the shape honestly: fifty guests at sixteen hours is $1,632 of labour, a higher per-head figure, because your hours do not halve when the guest list does.

Disclaimer: This is a planning estimate, not tax advice. Tax rates, deductions and allowances vary by country, state and business structure. Enter the rate you expect to pay, and check significant decisions with a qualified accountant.
Next: build a proposal with this rate Use the general rate calculator
Questions

Caterer rate questions

Quote it as its own line: ingredients priced separately — at cost, or at cost plus a handling margin you state — alongside the labour. Menus change and guest counts change, and when food hides inside a blended per-head figure, every upgrade the client chooses is paid for out of your hours. Separated, the client can trade menu against budget with their eyes open, and your labour is the one number that never quietly moves.
Because catering’s billable work arrives in lumps. Event days bill in full and run long; the tastings, quotes, menu planning, supplier management and admin around them mostly do not, and the calendar has quiet months the rent does not recognise. Fifty-two percent is a realistic start for an events-led solo practice. A caterer booked solid with a waiting list will honestly run higher — set the number that matches your year, not your best month.
Two honest structures exist, and either beats the free-for-everyone default. Charge for the tasting and credit it against the booking if the event goes ahead — serious clients recognise the fairness instantly. Or carry a fixed number of tastings a month as marketing inside your non-billable hours and expenses, as these presets do, and let further tastings be paid. What eats the rate is cooking a full menu, free, for every enquiry that emails.

Rates differ by trade — the same maths runs with different presets for graphic designer rates, freelance writer rates, web developer rates, marketing consultant rates, photographer rates, video editor rates, virtual assistant rates, social media manager rates, bookkeeper rates, translator rates, business coach rates, illustrator rates, copywriter rates, UX designer rates, SEO consultant rates, data analyst rates, motion designer rates, technical writer rates, podcast editor rates, email marketer rates, life coach rates, proofreader rates, event planner rates, voice actor rates, online tutor rates, personal trainer rates, interior designer rates, music producer rates, grant writer rates, UX researcher rates, book editor rates, transcriptionist rates, presentation designer rates, brand strategist rates, video producer rates, art director rates, WordPress developer rates, mobile app developer rates, 3D artist rates, game developer rates, Shopify developer rates, online business manager rates, podcast producer rates, data entry specialist rates, UX writer rates, copy editor rates, wedding photographer rates, resume writer rates, data scientist rates, instructional designer rates, business analyst rates, email designer rates, interpreter rates, audiobook narrator rates, landscape designer rates, wedding planner rates, wedding videographer rates, personal chef rates, dog trainer rates, music teacher rates, florist rates, cake baker rates, tour guide rates, pet groomer rates, house painter rates, handyman rates, locksmith rates, home organizer rates, pressure washer rates, carpet cleaner rates, chimney sweep rates, pool cleaner rates, window cleaner rates, tattoo artist rates, massage therapist rates, barber rates, makeup artist rates, hairstylist rates, nail technician rates, tailor rates, house cleaner rates, electrician rates, plumber rates, pest control technician rates, ppc specialist rates, content strategist rates, wedding DJ rates, dog walker rates, audio engineer rates, mover rates, appliance repair technician rates, nanny rates, piano tuner rates, garage door technician rates, bicycle mechanic rates, house sitter rates, upholsterer rates, jeweller rates, cobbler rates, blacksmith rates, sign writer rates, farrier rates, mobile car detailer rates, genealogist rates, saddler rates, arborist rates, travel agent rates, watch repairer rates, doula rates, sleep consultant rates, home stager rates, wedding officiant rates, college admissions consultant rates, mobile notary rates, personal shopper rates, welder rates, carpenter rates, glazier rates, plasterer rates, tiler rates, roofer rates, bricklayer rates, HVAC technician rates, dressmaker rates, concrete finisher rates, drywall installer rates, flooring installer rates, gardener rates, fence installer rates, gutter installer rates, solar installer rates, stonemason rates, deck builder rates, insulation installer rates, cabinet maker rates, paving installer rates, furniture restorer rates, blind installer rates, driving instructor rates, picture framer rates, aerial installer rates, car mechanic rates, clock repairer rates, oven cleaner rates, smart home installer rates, alarm installer rates, drain cleaner rates, curtain installer rates, irrigation installer rates, shutter installer rates, artificial grass installer rates, fireplace installer rates, bathtub refinisher rates, snow removal professional rates, landscape lighting installer rates and radon mitigation specialist rates, or start from the general freelance hourly rate calculator.