How to Price Your Homemade Food in Pakistan Without Undercharging
Most home chefs in Pakistan charge too little. Here is a practical method for calculating a price that actually covers your costs — and pays you fairly.
Pricing is the part of the home food business that most home chefs get wrong — not because they are bad at cooking, but because they never learned how to calculate the actual cost of what they make.
The most common result: charging PKR 800 for a dish that actually costs PKR 600 to produce. After gas, packaging, and the hour of your time, you made PKR 50.
Step 1: Calculate Your Ingredient Cost
For every dish, write down every ingredient and how much of it you use per serving. Then calculate the cost per portion. Be honest — account for oil, spices, and garnishes. These add up.
Example for a Karahi Chicken (serves 2–3):
- Chicken 750g: PKR 450
- Tomatoes, onions, spices: PKR 80
- Oil: PKR 30
- Total ingredient cost: PKR 560
Step 2: Add Your Overhead Cost
Gas, electricity, packaging, and platform fees are overhead. A simple way to estimate: add 20–25% on top of ingredient cost as overhead. For the Karahi above, that is PKR 112–140. So total cost before your time: PKR 672–700.
Step 3: Pay Yourself
This is the step most home chefs skip entirely. Your time has value. If a dish takes 45 minutes of active cooking and preparation, and you value your time at PKR 300/hour, that is PKR 225 of labour cost per dish.
Most home chefs charge prices that cover ingredients and overhead but give themselves nothing for their time. The result is that as orders increase, they feel busier but do not feel financially better off.
Step 4: Set a Selling Price
A healthy food business typically targets 60–70% gross margin. That means if your total cost (ingredients + overhead + your time) is PKR 925, a reasonable selling price is PKR 1,400–1,600.
Does that feel high? Compare it to what a good Karahi costs at a proper cloud kitchen or caterer. If your food is good and your packaging is professional, customers will pay a fair price. The home chefs who undercharge tend to attract customers who haggle. The ones who charge fairly attract customers who appreciate quality.
When to Adjust Your Prices
- Ingredient costs go up — review and adjust quarterly
- Your volume increases — higher volume may lower per-unit cost, but your time becomes more valuable
- You add premium packaging — this is a cost that should be reflected in price
- Customer feedback is consistently positive — if people keep saying your food is "worth more than you charge," believe them
Track Your Prices and Sales Together
Once you have good prices, you need to know which dishes are actually selling and at what margin. MealsCloud's daily sales reports show you exactly that — which items sold, how many, and your total revenue per day. Over a month, you will see clearly which dishes to push and which to reconsider.