Target Menu Price Calculator
You know your true cost — this turns it into an actual, sellable menu price. Pick the pricing method you think in (margin, markup, or target food cost %), then round the raw answer to a real menu-ready price and see exactly what you get after rounding. Live, on the same shared formula engine as every other calculator here.
Cost & Target
Enter your true cost and how you want to hit your target.
Pricing Method
Pick whichever framing you think in — all three land on real prices, just from different math.
Menu-Ready Rounding
The raw math rarely lands on a real menu price — choose how to round it.
What you actually get at this menu-ready price:
Want the full picture? Try the Ultimate Calculator — combines this with packaging, labor, fees, and overhead in one session.
How this is calculated ▸
price = cost ÷ (1 − target margin). Markup method:
price = cost × (1 + target markup). Food cost % method uses the margin formula with
target margin = 100 − target food cost %, since cost-as-%-of-price and
profit-as-%-of-price are complements. The raw price is then rounded per your chosen style.
Formula engine version .
Embed this calculator
Add it to your own site or blog — free, with attribution.
How to use the result
You already know your true cost — from the Recipe Cost Calculator or Cost Per Serving Calculator if you built it up there. This calculator's only job is turning that cost into an actual price you can put on a menu, using whichever pricing framework you think in. The raw target price is the exact mathematical answer — it'll rarely be a real price ($10.33, for instance). The menu-ready price is that number rounded into something sellable, and the three tiles below it show exactly what margin, food cost %, and markup you actually get once you round — which is almost never precisely your original target, since rounding shifts it slightly.
How this calculator works
Three pricing methods, one underlying relationship. Target margin % asks "what
percentage of the price should be profit?" and solves cost ÷ (1 − margin).
Target food cost % asks the same question from the other side — "what percentage of the
price should be cost?" — and because cost-share and profit-share of a price always add up to 100%, a 30%
food cost target and a 70% margin target produce the exact same price. Target markup on cost %
is a different animal entirely: it asks "what percentage of my cost should I add as profit?" and solves
cost × (1 + markup) — a markup and a margin at the "same" stated percentage produce different
prices, which is the single most common source of pricing confusion in the industry. Once a raw price is
calculated, it gets rounded using your chosen style — charm pricing rounds up to the next dollar and then
shaves a cent or a nickel off, landing just under a round number; quarter and whole-dollar rounding just
pick the nearest matching price.
Worked example
The example loaded above: a Grilled Chicken Sandwich costing $3.10 to make, targeting a 30% food cost, rounded to the nearest quarter.
- Raw target price: $3.10 ÷ (1 − 0.70) = $10.33
- Rounded to the nearest $0.25: $10.25
- Actual food cost at $10.25: 30.2% (not exactly 30%, because rounding moved the price down slightly)
- Actual margin at $10.25: 69.8%
- Actual markup at $10.25: 230.7%
Notice that 30.2% food cost and 230.7% markup describe the exact same $10.25 price — they're just different lenses on the same number. If you'd instead used the markup method and asked for a 230.7% markup directly, you'd land on the identical price; the confusion only creeps in when someone assumes a "30% markup" and a "30% food cost" mean the same thing, when they're actually very different prices.
Common mistakes
- Treating margin % and markup % as interchangeable. A 30% margin and a 30% markup on the same $3.10 cost produce two different prices ($4.43 vs. $4.03) — always check which one you or your spreadsheet is actually calculating.
- Putting the raw target price straight on the menu. $10.33 looks unfinished and uncommon on a printed menu — rounding to a real price is a normal, expected step, not something to skip.
- Forgetting rounding shifts your actual margin. Rounding $10.33 down to $10.25 quietly gives up a little profit versus the raw target — usually trivial per item, but worth knowing rather than assuming your rounded menu exactly hits your target percentages.
- Picking a target percentage without knowing if it's realistic for your business. This calculator does the math for whatever target you enter — it doesn't validate that the target itself is achievable or typical for your niche. See Methodology & Sources for which niches have sourced cost benchmarks so far.