Catering price-per-person calculator
Realistic 2026 market ranges by service style, menu tier, and region — so you can sanity-check a quote in ten seconds. Estimates only: your recipes decide your real numbers.
Suggested per person
$29.50 – $49.00
Total for 50 guests
$1,475.00 – $2,450.00
What's in that range
- Buffet (staffed): $18.00 – $28.00 per person
- Standard (pork, beef, salmon): $7.00 – $12.00 per person
- 3 side dishes: $4.50 – $9.00 per person
Regional adjustment: none (national average).
Get exact costs from YOUR recipes
Ranges win arguments; your ingredients win jobs. CaterKit photographs your menu and turns it into costed recipes and a quote you can send tonight — free to start.
How this calculator works
It adds a base per-person range for your service style (staffing and equipment differ a lot between drop-off and plated service), a protein-tier range, and a per-side range, then applies your regional cost adjustment. The coefficients are 2026 US market ranges, documented in the open in our repo — not AI guesses, and deliberately not anyone's real recipe costs. For those, there's the button above. Also try the food-cost & margin calculator.