Key points at a glance
- Ask first, calculate second: occasion, guest numbers, timing, venue, format, dietary needs and budget belong in every enquiry, ideally through a fixed form.
- Quantities per person depend on the format: finger food as the main meal needs far more pieces than a drinks reception. Work with your own benchmarks and a small reserve.
- A price per head only covers the food. Staff, equipment, travel and overheads are separate costs in your calculation and often separate lines in the quote.
- A good quote states services, prices, taxes, deadlines, deposit and cancellation terms in writing, so nobody argues at the end about items that were never discussed.
- A post-event review after every job shows where quantities, hours or prices were off and makes your next quote more accurate.
This post is general information and does not replace legal or tax advice. Rules change and some differ between federal states: check the details with your chamber of commerce (WKO) or IHK, the competent authority or your tax adviser.
The enquiry: ask first, calculate second
Most mistakes in a catering quote do not happen in the maths but before it: nobody mentioned that the venue is on the third floor without a lift, that a third of the guests are vegetarian or that the buffet is meant to stay out for four hours. A short first conversation with a fixed list of questions saves you add-ons and trouble later. Even better, ask the key points in the enquiry form on your website, so complete enquiries land in your inbox instead of a single line saying “How much is catering for 50 people?”
Clarify these points before every quote
- Occasion and type of guests: company party, wedding, seminar, birthday, funeral reception
- Date, times for setup, service and finish, how long the buffet stays out
- Number of guests, including children, and when the final number will be confirmed
- Venue address: kitchen on site, power, water, lift, access, parking
- Format: finger food, flying buffet, buffet, plated menu or delivery only
- Diets and allergies: vegetarian, vegan, halal, gluten-free
- Drinks: supplied by you, by the client or by the venue
- Service, tableware, tables, decoration: what is needed and what is already there
- Budget per person or in total, if the client is willing to share it
- Who gets the invoice: a private person or a company
Asking about the budget is not rude. It tells you whether to offer a three-course menu or a solid buffet and saves you writing quotes that will never be accepted. How to attract the right enquiries from companies, couples and venues in the first place is covered in the guide on winning catering clients. Recurring business lunches with a price per portion and a framework contract have their own guide: corporate catering subscriptions.
Planning quantities per person
Too little food is the worst mistake in catering, too much food the most expensive one. The right amount depends on the format, the time of day, the audience and whether it is the main meal of the day. A crew of builders at a company party eats differently from seminar guests at lunch. Keep your own benchmarks and adjust them after every job. The table below is a starting point from practice, not a standard.
| Format | Guide per person | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Reception with finger food before a meal | 4 to 6 pieces | Only meant to go with the aperitif |
| Finger food or flying buffet as the main meal | 12 to 16 pieces, plus something sweet | Mix of cold, warm and filling bites |
| Buffet: main component of meat, fish or vegetarian | 150 to 200 g | Less per dish if there are several mains |
| Buffet: sides | 150 to 200 g | Cheap and filling, use them as a buffer |
| Buffet: salads and starters | 100 to 150 g | Rather more in summer |
| Dessert | 100 to 150 g or 2 to 3 pieces | Small portions get taken more often |
Planning staff and working hours realistically
Next to food cost, staff is the biggest cost block in catering and the one most often underestimated. It is not just the time at the event that counts, but also prep, packing, driving, setup, teardown, the drive back, unloading and washing up. An evening with four hours of service easily means eight to ten hours per person for the team.
- Kitchen: derive production hours from your recipes instead of guessing. If you make a dish often, you know the time per ten portions.
- Service: how many servers you need depends heavily on the format. A plated menu needs far more staff than a buffet, a flying buffet sits in between.
- Lead on site: one person who keeps an eye on the schedule, the client and the team, even if they also work.
- Surcharges: include night, Sunday and public holiday work as well as overtime under the collective agreement (Kollektivvertrag in Austria, Tarifvertrag in Germany).
- Agency staff: temporary staff from an agency cost more per hour than your own team but save fixed costs.
Calculate staff at the full hourly rate including employer costs, not at net pay. You can get that rate from your payroll or your tax adviser.
Equipment, hire items and travel
Chafing dishes, insulated boxes, cool boxes, crockery, cutlery, glasses, high tables, linen, decoration: what you own costs wear, cleaning and storage space, what you hire costs rent and often breakage. Both belong in your calculation. Then there is travel, with vehicle costs and the team's driving time. Many caterers work with a delivery area where travel is included and charge a flat rate per kilometre or zone beyond it.
- Own equipment: set a usage charge per event that covers repairs, replacement and cleaning.
- Hire items: take the hire price, delivery, washing and breakage fee from the rental company into your calculation.
- Travel: kilometres there and back, vehicle costs, the team's driving time, possibly parking or tolls.
- Several trips: setting up in the morning and collecting the next day are two runs, not one.
- On site: if there is no power or water, you may need gas equipment, canisters or a generator.
Pricing the quote
A catering price is made up of several building blocks. Food cost per person is only the start. How to set up recipes, work with a markup or factor and keep an eye on the contribution margin is explained in the guide on restaurant costing. For a catering quote, work in this order.
Food cost
Calculate food cost per person for the chosen format from your recipes, including the reserve and consumables such as napkins or packaging.
Staff
Multiply all hours from prep to washing up by the full hourly rate and add surcharges.
Equipment and hire items
Add the usage charge for your own equipment and the cost of hired items.
Travel
Include kilometres, vehicle costs and driving time for every run you need.
Overheads and profit
Add a surcharge for rent, energy, insurance, office and sales work, plus your profit. Without it you only break even.
Taxes and rounding
Show VAT on food and drinks separately and round the price per head up to a clean figure.
VAT deserves a closer look: in Austria food is taxed at 10 % and most drinks at 20 %, in Germany food has been at 7 % since 2026 and drinks at 19 %. Whether services such as staff, hired tableware or travel follow the food rate or are treated separately depends on the individual case. Clarify this once with your tax adviser and build your quote template around it. For private clients, state final prices including VAT; for companies, net plus VAT is common.
Work out a price per portion in seconds
The menu price calculator turns food cost, target share and VAT into a selling price for Austria or Germany.
How a good catering quote is structured
The quote is often the first thing a client sees from you in black and white. In two minutes it should show what they get and what it costs, and at the same time record everything that could become a dispute later. A fixed template saves time and makes sure no point is forgotten.
| Section | Content |
|---|---|
| Key facts | Occasion, date, times, venue, number of guests, contact person on both sides |
| Food | Menu or buffet with clear names, diets marked, note on allergen information |
| Drinks | Flat rate, billed by consumption or supplied by the client, with prices |
| Service and staff | Number of people, hours, price per hour or flat rate, surcharges |
| Equipment and travel | Tableware, buffet setup, hire items, delivery area or rate per kilometre |
| Prices | Price per head and total, VAT rates, net or gross clearly marked |
| Terms | Validity of the quote, deadline for the final guest count, deposit, payment terms, cancellation terms |
How to get it right
- Offer two or three options, for example basic, standard and premium
- Describe services so the client can picture them
- Limit how long the quote is valid, for example two weeks
- Have the client confirm acceptance in writing or by email
- Attach photos of previous buffets or menus
Better not
- Name only a price per head without describing what is included
- Quietly “build in” staff and travel somewhere and then lose money
- Cover open points with “by arrangement”
- Accept verbal agreements on the phone without written confirmation
- Give prices with no expiry date although purchase prices fluctuate
Deposit, guest count and cancellation
As soon as you confirm a date, you block team, vehicle and capacity, and you often buy ingredients days in advance. A deposit at booking covers this risk and makes the booking binding. A share of the expected total, credited against the final invoice, is common; for large jobs also a second instalment shortly before the event. Just as important is a deadline for the final guest count: until then the number may go down, after that the confirmed number is billed. For VAT purposes, deposits usually have to be recorded when the payment arrives; ask your tax adviser how to document them.
| Austria | Germany | |
|---|---|---|
| Client cancels | Under § 1168 ABGB (Austrian Civil Code), the contractor can in principle claim the agreed fee if the service does not happen for reasons on the client's side, but must deduct what was saved. | Claim under general contract law of the BGB (German Civil Code). Saved expenses and other jobs taken on the same date reduce the claim. |
| Flat fees | Staggered cancellation fees are common. Under § 1336 ABGB a court can reduce an agreed contractual penalty if it is excessive. | Flat-rate damages in standard terms may not exceed the usual damage, and the client must be allowed to prove a lower loss (§ 309 No. 5 BGB). |
| In practice | Staggered deadlines in the quote, model terms from the Chamber of Commerce (WKO). | Staggered deadlines in the quote, have your terms checked by the IHK, DEHOGA or a lawyer. |
With business clients you have more room than with private individuals, for whom the rules on standard terms are stricter. How restaurants and inns handle the same questions for parties in their own function room is covered in the guide on parties and groups at your inn.
Post-event review: learning from every job
Only after the event do you know whether the quote was right. The post-event review compares planned and actual figures: how much food was bought and how much came back? How many hours did the team really work? Were there extra trips, breakage or services that were not in the quote? Do it promptly, while everyone still remembers, ideally with a simple sheet per job.
Post-event review in five points
- Actual food cost from purchasing compared with the plan
- Leftovers per component: what was left over, what ran short?
- Actual staff hours including setup, teardown and washing up
- Extra costs: additional trips, hire items, breakage, last-minute purchases
- Result: planned and actual contribution margin of the job
Use the results to adjust your benchmarks for quantities, hours and surcharges. After ten to twenty jobs you will have figures that fit your audience better than any general table. Extra services the client orders spontaneously on the day belong on the final invoice, but only if they were confirmed on site. And a short thank-you after the event with a request for feedback is the best start for the next job.
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