CATERING PRICING GUIDE
Catering pricing: what to charge per person in 2026
The 2026 US prices per guest for a buffet, family style, a plated dinner and a food truck, what office catering sells for, what to add for the bar, staff and rentals, the food-cost and labor shares behind a profitable menu — and a free calculator that turns them into a price list you can put on your website.
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The short answer
Event caterers charge $40 to $70 a guest for a buffet, $60 to $100 for family style and $70 to $120 for a plated dinner, with all-inclusive venue packages at $100 to $200 or more (Paperlust's 2026 wedding catering guide, July 2026, which also quotes The Knot's national average of $80 a guest). Food trucks sit far below: $9 to $15 a guest for a taco truck, $15 to $28 for a gourmet or BBQ truck.
Office catering is its own market: across more than 50,000 orders, CaterCow's all-in averages are $17 a person for breakfast, $20 for lunch, $21 for dinner, $19 for a happy hour, $16 for snacks and $8 for dessert, with buffets about 11% above individually boxed meals (October 2025).
The extras go on their own lines: $30 to $75 a guest for a full open bar, $15 to $40 for beer and wine, $1 to $5 a guest to cut a cake, and a 15% to 20% gratuity, sometimes added to the final invoice (Paperlust). FreshBooks' example per-person quote, citing Draper's Catering, puts the service charge for staff at $5.50 to $9 a guest and rentals at $2 to $6 (May 2025).
Build the price from the plate: food at 28% to 35% of the price and labor at 25% to 35% (Galley Solutions), the food marked up about three times (FreshBooks). Then put per-guest prices on your website: “catering pricing” is Googled about 720 times a month, and “how much to charge for catering” is put to AI assistants about 1,090 times (DataForSEO, October 2026).
AT A GLANCE · NOVEMBER 2026
Catering pricing at a glance
| The job | Typical US price | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Buffet, 100 guests | $4,000–$7,000 for 100 guests ($40–$70 per guest) | Paperlust, July 2026 |
| Family style, 100 guests | $6,000–$10,000 for 100 guests ($60–$100 per guest) | Paperlust, July 2026 |
| Plated dinner, 100 guests | $7,000–$12,000 for 100 guests ($70–$120 per guest) | Paperlust, July 2026 |
| Taco truck, per guest | $9–$15 | Paperlust, July 2026 |
| Gourmet or BBQ truck, per guest | $15–$28 | Paperlust, July 2026 |
| Office meal, 25 people | $425–$525 for 25 people ($17–$21 per person) | CaterCow, October 2025 |
The same published figures as the full rate table below; the calculator works out a price for your own job.
FREE PRICE CALCULATOR
What should I charge for this event?
Pick the service style and type the guest count, or an office order by the head, then tick the bar, staff, rentals and cake cutting. The range uses the published US figures in the table below.
Suggested price
$4,000–$7,000
buffet, per guest (Paperlust), 100 guests
Published US ranges to start from — cost your own menu at this week's ingredient prices and staff the event (see the formula below) before any of it becomes your price. Every per-guest price should name what it includes — staff, rentals, the bar — and whether a gratuity is added on top.
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Put your catering prices where customers look
Add your town, and Zarla builds your catering website from this one line. Then tell the editor “add a pricing section” with your prices, and change them any time.
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RATES · NOVEMBER 2026
Catering prices per person (2026)
Per-guest US figures by service style, for food trucks and for office meals. Alongside them: an all-inclusive venue package runs $100–$200 or more a guest and The Knot's national average is $80 (both via Paperlust, July 2026); FreshBooks' example per-person totals, citing Draper's Catering, are $26–$37 for a buffet dinner, $31–$42 plated and $26–$36 for hors d'oeuvres (May 2025). The office row spans CaterCow's breakfast ($17), lunch ($20) and dinner ($21) averages.
| The job | Typical US price · source |
|---|---|
| Buffet, per guest (Paperlust) | $40–$70 per guest · about $4,000–$7,000 for 100 guests · Paperlust |
| Family style, per guest (Paperlust) | $60–$100 per guest · about $6,000–$10,000 for 100 guests · Paperlust |
| Plated dinner, per guest (Paperlust) | $70–$120 per guest · about $7,000–$12,000 for 100 guests · Paperlust |
| Food truck, per guest (Paperlust) | Taco truck: $9–$15 · Gourmet or BBQ truck: $15–$28 · Paperlust |
| Office meal, per person, all-in (CaterCow's breakfast-to-dinner averages) | $17–$21 per person · about $425–$525 for 25 people · CaterCow |
Rates read off each publisher's page in November 2026. The calculator above uses exactly these numbers, rounded to whole dollars and to the nearest $5 from $100 up. Full source list below.
ADD-ONS AND ADJUSTMENTS
What to add for the bar, staff, rentals and the cake
Each priced per guest on its own line. The gratuity — 15%–20% on weddings (Paperlust), 4%–5% on office orders (CaterCow) — is the client's, never part of your price.
| What | Typical US price · source |
|---|---|
| Full open bar | +$30–$75 per guest · Paperlust |
| Beer and wine bar | +$15–$40 per guest · Paperlust |
| Service charge for staff | +$5.50–$9 per guest · FreshBooks |
| Rentals | +$2–$6 per guest · FreshBooks |
| Cake cutting | +$1–$5 per guest · Paperlust |
Where a row shows a sum (a rate × a quantity, or a percentage worked out from published dollar ranges), the arithmetic is ours and the inputs are the publisher's.
THE PRICING FORMULA
How to price a catering menu
Six steps from the plate to the per-guest price — and the lines that sit beside it.
Cost the plate
Price every recipe per guest at what you pay today. Galley Solutions puts catering food cost at 28%–35% of the price (25% at the high end, up to 40% for volume caterers); FreshBooks says about 30%, and 24%–28% for better profit (May 2025).
Mark up, or price for the margin
FreshBooks' standard markup is about three times the cost of the food. Galley prices the other way, total cost ÷ (1 − margin) at a 65%–70% gross margin: an $11 plate at 68% is $34.38, listed at $34.99.
Staff the event
Labor runs 25%–35% of revenue (Galley). The median server earns $16.94 an hour and the median restaurant cook $17.98 (O*NET, 2025 wages); Galley's staff for a 100-guest wedding — a head chef, two line cooks, four servers and a coordinator — totals $996.
Spread the overhead over the events
Galley's example is $10,000 of monthly overhead over 20 events, about $500 an event; FreshBooks' is $5,000 over 10 jobs, the same $500. Each event carries its share of the kitchen, the van and the insurance.
Price by service style
Buffet $40–$70 a guest, family style $60–$100, plated $70–$120 (Paperlust, July 2026): the more staff on the floor, the higher the line. CaterCow sees office buffets about 11% above boxed meals.
Put the extras on their own lines
Bar $30–$75 a guest for a full open bar or $15–$40 for beer and wine, cake cutting $1–$5 (Paperlust), the staff service charge $5.50–$9 and rentals $2–$6 (FreshBooks). Galley marks the bar up 200%–300% over its cost.
The formula, worked through
Galley Solutions' own example: a wedding for 100 guests at $50 a guest is $5,000. Its staff for the night — a head chef at $200, two line cooks at $216, four servers at $360 and a coordinator at $220 — is $996, about 20% of the price and under its 30% labor budget of $1,500 — and Galley notes that figure leaves out prep time, cleanup and event planning.
Take the food at 30% of the price, $1,500 or $15 a guest, and Galley's $500 share of the month's overhead: the event costs about $2,996 and leaves about $2,004 — before the prep, cleanup and planning hours, rentals and the bar (our arithmetic on Galley's figures). Add a beer-and-wine bar at Paperlust's $15–$40 a guest and the same 100 guests add $1,500–$4,000.
At $50 a guest, Galley's wedding sits in the lower half of Paperlust's $40–$70 buffet range — so “buffets from $50 a guest, plated dinners from $70 a guest, office lunches from $20 a person, bar packages from $15 a guest” is a fair line for your website. Galley's and Paperlust's numbers, our addition.
Catering prices city to city — and the rules around them
CaterCow's office lunches run under $18 a person all-in in Boston, Boulder and Houston, and $20–$21 in New York City, San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and Austin (October 2025). The Bureau of Economic Analysis puts overall prices in California at 110.7 against a US average of 100 and Arkansas at 86.9 (2024 regional price parities, released February 2026) — so a $50-a-guest buffet in an average market is about $55 in California and about $43 in Arkansas.
In the US, catering is licensed food service — usually through your county or city health department, in some states through a state agency — which permits and inspects the kitchen you cook in, and selling or serving alcohol often needs its own license or permit. Sales tax on the service charge, and on a gratuity printed on the invoice, is a state-by-state question. Check with your health department and your state's alcohol agency, and have your accountant confirm what's taxable.
Beyond the US the dollars won't carry over, but the build will: food at roughly a third of the price, staff and overhead on top, the service style setting the per-guest line, and the bar, rentals and service charge each priced separately. Read the menus local caterers publish before you set yours.
Put your prices on your website
A price list — even “from” prices — answers a customer's first question before they pick up the phone, and it's the line an AI assistant can quote when someone asks what catering costs near them.
If you build your site with Zarla, tell the editor “add a pricing section: buffets from $50 a guest, plated dinners from $70 a guest, office lunches from $20 a person, bar packages from $15 a guest” and your prices go on the site, in a section you can edit any time. Want to see a finished site first? Browse catering website templates or see how Zarla builds catering websites.
Still setting up? Write your catering business plan, browse catering business name ideas, and when the prices are set, read how to get your business on Google. Raising prices you set a year ago? The price increase letter tells customers a month ahead.
Cooking for one table in a client's home instead? Private chef rates prices the dinner by the guest and the hour.
Catering pricing: common questions
$40–$70 a guest for a buffet, $60–$100 family style and $70–$120 plated, with all-inclusive venue packages at $100–$200 or more (Paperlust, July 2026); The Knot's national wedding average is $80 a guest. Office meals run $17–$21 a person all-in (CaterCow, October 2025). The calculator above works out the event by the head.
$40–$70 a guest for a wedding buffet (Paperlust, July 2026). FreshBooks' example per-person quote, citing Draper's Catering, totals $26–$37 for a buffet dinner (May 2025); for office orders, CaterCow sees buffets about 11% above individually boxed meals.
$70–$120 a guest (Paperlust, July 2026) — the most staff-heavy style, which is why it tops the range. FreshBooks' example quote for a plated dinner is $31–$42 a person, citing Draper's Catering (May 2025).
28%–35% of the price, about 25% at the high end and up to 40% for volume caterers (Galley Solutions); FreshBooks says about 30%, and 24%–28% for better profit (May 2025). Labor takes another 25%–35% (Galley).
CaterCow's all-in averages across more than 50,000 orders: $17 a person for breakfast, $20 for lunch, $21 for dinner, $19 for a happy hour, $16 for snacks and $8 for dessert (October 2025). The average office tip is 4%–5% of the order.
FreshBooks' example prices the staff as a service charge — $5.50–$9 a guest (May 2025) — and the gratuity stays the client's call: 15%–20% on weddings, sometimes added to the final invoice (Paperlust, July 2026). Say on the price which one is inside it.
$30–$75 a guest for a full open bar and $15–$40 for beer and wine (Paperlust, July 2026). Galley Solutions marks the bar up 200%–300% over its cost and puts a full bar at 20%–30% of the event's total.
Yes — a per-guest “from” price for each service style answers the planner's first question before they write in, and gives AI assistants a figure to repeat when someone asks what catering costs nearby. On a Zarla site, tell the editor “add a pricing section” with your menu prices, and change them when your costs do.
Where these numbers come from
Every range on this page is read off a published source, dated below. They're US figures for wedding, event and office catering — typical, not a rule; your costs and your market come first.
- Paperlust — How Much Does Wedding Catering Cost? (2026 Guide) — dated July 2026, read November 2026
- CaterCow — How Much Does Corporate Catering Cost per Person? (more than 50,000 orders reviewed) — dated October 2025, read November 2026
- FreshBooks — How to Charge for Catering: A Complete Pricing Guide — dated May 2025, read November 2026
- Galley Solutions — How to Price a Catering Menu for Profitability — no date on the page, read November 2026
- O*NET OnLine — 35-3031.00 Waiters and Waitresses (median wages, 2025) — dated October 2026, read November 2026
- O*NET OnLine — 35-2014.00 Cooks, Restaurant (median wages, 2025) — dated October 2026, read November 2026
- U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis — regional price parities by state, 2024 — dated February 2026, read September 2026
Put your catering prices on your website
Add your town and your company's name, and Zarla builds the site from that one line. Your per-guest prices go in a pricing section you edit by chat.
Already have a website? Bring it across →Zarla keeps your old page addresses where it can and redirects the ones that change, helping you keep the Google standing you've built.