menu price = ingredient cost × markup factor
Menu price
$19.20
$19.20 ex-tax · food cost 25.0%
Benchmarks: kitchen ×3–4, bar ×4–5. And the right markup assumes your food cost is current — yours moves. See why ↓
Free calculator
Menu markup calculator — blind ×3 pricing is costing you money
One flat markup across the menu means dishes sold at a loss and best-sellers left underpriced — with nothing flagging it. On a 5–10% net margin, the wrong coefficient per dish shows up at year-end. The math, the target markups by category, and a free calculator to check yours in 30 seconds.
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Définition
The markup factor is the number you multiply a dish's ingredient cost by to set its menu price. A factor of 4 on $5 of ingredients gives $20. Kitchens typically target ×3 to ×4, bars ×4 to ×5.
Menu price = ingredient cost × markup factor
The method
A simple reflex, and its trap
You take a dish's ingredient cost and multiply it to get the menu price. A markup factor of 4 on a $5 plate of ingredients gives $20. That's both its strength and its danger: the factor is only as good as the ingredient cost you feed it. Fed a wrong number, it produces a wrong price, dish after dish, all year long.
The starting point, measured properly: food cost calculator →
What markup factor should you target?
In the kitchen
×3–4
Brings food cost into the 25–35% range kitchens target. The right factor is never a menu-wide average — it's decided dish by dish.
Behind the bar
×4–5
Cocktails and spirits carry the room's margin. It's also where a heavy pour undoes it: correct on paper, wrong in the glass.
The trap
30–50%
of profit that evaporates on a 5–10% net margin
The markup factor doesn't correct anything — it amplifies. Applied to a cost that dates from the last price list, the menu price is already off. Kitchens run 3–5% drift between theoretical and actual cost (Restaurant365, MarginEdge); a bar can lose up to 20% of its liquor stock to uneven pours (Sculpture Hospitality).
This is exactly the leak Methodus plugs. See how ↓
The math
The gap is small. The leak isn't.
The gap between what you think a plate costs and what it really costs runs 5–20%. Drag your numbers and watch what it quietly takes off your margin.
You're leaking about
$18,000
Yearly revenue$600,000
Ingredient cost30%
Cost gap — perceived vs. real10%
Most venues sit around 10%.
Net margin7%
F&B runs thin — often 5–10%.
You're leaking about
$18,000
a year — ≈ 42.9% of your net profit.
Margin you already earned — you just can't see it yet.
Gap range: Sculpture Hospitality · Restaurant365
The fix
Methodus plugs the leak
Not another spreadsheet, not a binder in the office: an app the kitchen, the bar, and the floor use morning to night — and that does the data entry for you.
- 1
“The purchase prices are stale”
Your invoices are read automatically
Drop the supplier invoice — PDF, photo, even an email attachment. Methodus reads every line and updates your purchase prices. The hike shows up the same day, not at month-end.
- 2
“The specs sleep in a binder”
Every spec recalculates the moment a price moves
You see each dish's real markup, not the one from the day the menu was printed. Recipe spec sheet template →
- 3
“No one can name the cost mid-service”
The whole team sees the same numbers
The line and the bar see what a plate or a glass costs, from their phones. The pour holds itself — no policing.
You stop chasing the drift: what used to evaporate every month becomes net profit again.
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In action
See the calculation run in the product
On a real spec, ingredient cost prices itself and the menu price follows your markup — no spreadsheet, no re-entry.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Divide the ex-tax selling price by the dish's ingredient cost. A dish with $5 of ingredients sold at $20 ex-tax has a markup factor of 4. To set a price, do it in reverse: multiply the ingredient cost by your target factor.
Roughly ×3 to ×4 in the kitchen, ×4 to ×5 at the bar. These benchmarks bring food cost into its target range (28–35% kitchen, 18–24% bar). But the right factor is decided dish by dish, never as a menu-wide average.
They're two ways of saying the same thing. The markup factor is the inverse of food cost: a food cost of 25% corresponds to a markup factor of 4 (1 ÷ 0.25). Choosing a factor is choosing a target food cost ratio.
No — it only amplifies whatever cost you give it. Applied to an ingredient cost that dates from the last price list, it produces a price that's already off. You need a current ingredient cost, spec by spec, before you multiply.
Who builds methodusmethodus is built by an operator. Nathaniel Gilliand, École hôtelière de Lausanne graduate, runs restaurants, bars and beach clubs. This is the tool he built to find the margin that was evaporating in his own P&L.
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The right price, on the real cost
Methodus reads your invoices, keeps ingredient cost current, and applies your markup to every spec — kitchen and bar. The menu price stops lying.
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