Prep Recipe Cost Calculator

A sauce, a stock or a dough is never costed one portion at a time — it's made in a batch, then used across dozens of plates. The only way to know what one of those plates actually costs is to add up everything that went INTO the batch and divide by what came OUT of it.

The formula, in the open

• Total batch cost = the sum of every ingredient cost in the batch.
• Cost per unit = total batch cost ÷ batch yield, in whatever unit the kitchen measures the finished batch (litres, kg, portions).

A worked example

A tomato sauce batch uses four ingredients costing ₹340, ₹120, ₹85 and ₹60 — a total of ₹605. The batch reduces down to 6 litres. Cost per litre = 605 ÷ 6 ≈ 100.8, which rounds to ₹101.

What moves the number

Every ingredient line moves the total directly — swap one component for a cheaper equivalent and the whole batch cost drops by exactly that difference. The batch yield matters just as much: a tighter reduction or better straining that recovers 7 litres instead of 6 from the same ₹605 of ingredients brings the cost down to 605 ÷ 7 ≈ 86.4, which rounds to ₹86 per litre, with nothing added or removed from the pot. The same batch-and-divide arithmetic runs a bar's pour costing too — see the beverage cost calculator for the single-drink version.

Try it

Enter your own ingredient costs and batch yield below. The defaults are the worked example — replace them with yours.