How to Price Grazing Tables: Per Guest, With a Calculator

To price a guest at a grazing table you add up its full cost first: the cheeses, meats, fruit and crackers for the table by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the paper, boards and disposables, and a share of overhead like rent and power. That's what one guest costs you. Then set the price so that, after card and selling fees, it leaves the margin you want: price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − fee rate). For a table for 50 guests that costs $9.48 to make, a 45% margin after 3% fees means $18.23, rounded up to $18.25. Cheese and cured meat are two-thirds of the food, so their prices set yours. A venue or planner's package price is the wholesale here, set so it still covers the full cost with something left. In the example below, a Charlotte grazing table stylist prices a table for a 50-person corporate event.

The short version

• Full cost = food a guest + your time + disposables + overhead.
• Price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − fee rate).
• Count your time at a real hourly rate, even if you don't pay yourself yet.
• Cost the whole table, then divide by the guests.
• Charge setup, breakdown and travel beyond your area as their own lines.
• Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
• TaroStack costs each table from its recipe and what each batch used. More below.

What goes into a guest's cost

Smaller boards are in how to price charcuterie boards, and the business year in charcuterie business plan.

An example: a table for 50

Graze & Gather, a made-up grazing table stylist in Charlotte, North Carolina, builds a six-foot table for a 50-person corporate event:

At a 45% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $9.48 ÷ 0.52 = $18.23, so $18.25. At $18.25 a guest the table comes to $912.50, and each guest leaves $8.22. It had been quoting $20 a guest, which leaves $9.92, and kept $20. A wedding planner asked for $14.00 a guest in a package, which leaves $4.10. The license it needs is in charcuterie business license.

Get the calculator

Download the grazing table price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's ingredients, amounts and costs, the guests it makes, the hands-on minutes, the disposables and overhead, your hourly rate, card fees and the margin you want; the full cost, the price for your margin rounded up, and what a wholesale price and a test price leave fill in. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Where this stops working

The calculator prices one table. Brie bought at a new price, a guest count that changes twice, and cheese left at the end change what each table really cost.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack costs each table from its recipe and from what each batch used.

Recipes by weight. Each table is a recipe, with unit conversion from the case or sack to the gram.

True cost from the batch. Each batch takes ingredients at their real cost, from the deliveries they came from, so a price rise shows up in the next batch.

Price creep. A price-creep report per supplier shows which ingredient is quietly costing more.

Recipes, batches and true cost are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.

Questions people also ask

How much should I charge for a grazing table?

Work out the full cost, cheeses, meats and fruit, the hours, disposables and overhead, then divide by 1 minus your margin and fee rate; the example's $9.48 guest prices at $18.25 for a 45% margin.

How do you calculate the cost of a grazing table?

Add the batch's ingredients and divide by the guests it makes, then add your time, the disposables and a share of overhead.

What is a good profit margin on guests?

Set your own target after fees; the example uses 45% on direct sales and accepts less on wholesale.

How much food per person for a grazing table?

The example plans about 2.6 ounces of cheese and 1.9 ounces of cured meat a guest, with crackers, fruit and nuts.