How Costs Work
Every ingredient in Cucinovo has a unit price. When you add ingredients to a recipe, the system calculates the total recipe cost automatically.
The formula for each ingredient line is:
Ingredient cost = quantity x unit price x (1 + waste% / 100)
The total recipe cost is the sum of all ingredient costs plus the costs of any sub-recipes included in the recipe.
Cost per portion divides the total recipe cost by the output quantity. For a recipe that outputs 4 servings (4 pc) with a total cost of EUR 12, the cost per portion is EUR 3.
Food Cost Percentage
Food cost percentage tells you how much of your selling price goes to ingredient costs. The formula is:
Food cost % = (cost per portion / selling price) x 100
The industry standard thresholds are:
- Under 30% — healthy margin (shown in green).
- 30% to 35% — acceptable but worth monitoring (shown in yellow).
- Above 35% — low margin, consider adjusting pricing or ingredients (shown in red).
These thresholds are configurable in Settings if your business uses different targets.
Food cost percentage only appears when you set a selling price on the recipe. Without a selling price, only the raw cost per portion is shown.
Margin Indicator
The recipe detail page shows a margin badge next to the cost information. This gives you an instant visual signal:
- Green badge — healthy margin. Your food cost is well below the threshold.
- Yellow badge — warning. Your food cost is approaching the threshold.
- Red badge — losing money or very tight margins. Consider adjusting the selling price, reducing waste, or finding cheaper ingredient alternatives.
Use the margin indicator to quickly scan your recipe list and identify dishes that need pricing attention.
Labor Costing
Labor costing is available on the Pro plan for restaurant organizations.
The Pro plan adds labor cost tracking to your recipe costing. To use it:
- Set the hourly labor rate in Settings (e.g., EUR 15/hour).
- Set the prep time on each recipe (in minutes) under Advanced Options.
The labor cost for a recipe is calculated as:
Labor cost = (prep time / 60) x hourly rate
For batch cooking, time scales sublinearly — cooking 10 portions does not take 10 times as long as cooking 1 portion. Cucinovo factors this into the per-portion labor cost.
Plan Availability
Cost per portion requires the Starter plan or higher for restaurant organizations. Household organizations get cost tracking on the Plus plan.
On the household Free plan (or when a restaurant trial has expired), you can still create recipes and add ingredients, but cost calculations are not shown.