A portion calculator for cooking at home
How much food
do I actually need
The hard part of having people over was never the cooking. It was working out how much. Tell us how many, how long they are staying and what shape the meal is — the table below rebuilds itself as you drag.
Nothing to sign up for. The arithmetic runs in your browser from a fixed table of catering coefficients, so you can check it.
The four things that decide it
Six to thirty. Above about sixteen, each head eats a little less.
The same twelve people over six hours get through roughly twice the nibbles of twelve over two.
| Dish | Per person | For 12 |
|---|---|---|
| Nibbles · 3 dishes | 1.2–1.9 kg | |
| Nibbles — kind 1 | 35–50 g | 425–600 g |
| Nibbles — kind 2 | 35–50 g | 425–600 g |
| Nibbles — kind 3 | 35–50 g | 425–600 g |
| Mains · 1 dish | 1.8–2.4 kg | |
| Mains | 150–200 g | 1.8–2.4 kg |
| Sides · 2 dishes | 1.8–2.6 kg | |
| Sides — dish 1 | 75–110 g | 900–1300 g |
| Sides — dish 2 | 75–110 g | 900–1300 g |
| Salad · 1 dish | 1.2–1.8 kg | |
| Salad | 105–150 g | 1.3–1.8 kg |
| Bread · 1 dish | 800–1200 g | |
| Bread | 65–100 g | 800–1200 g |
| Dessert · 1 dish | 1.2–1.7 kg | |
| Dessert | 100–140 g | 1.2–1.7 kg |
| Everything, cooked weight | 667–967 g | 8.0–11.6 kg |
- Total, cooked
- 8.0–11.6 kg
- Per head
- 667–967 g
- Dishes
- 9
- Made ahead
- 4
What will be left
Catering quantities are built not to run short, and the price of not running short is that some of it is left. On these numbers expect roughly 22% of the mains and sides to survive — around 700–1200 g. That is the plan working, not the plan failing.
Anything about whether food is safe to eat needs your national food safety authority, not a portion calculator. When in doubt, throw it out.
We can't help with allergens. Ask your guests directly and check every label yourself — a mistake here can be serious.
We don't look at photographs of food. There is no way to upload one here, on purpose — and we give no nutrition, calorie or dietary advice to anyone.
Why these numbers
What is pushing them up, and down
Every figure above is the base quantity multiplied by the factors on the right. None of it is a black box, and none of it came out of a language model.
- 5 hours in the houseraises
Nibbles and bread scale almost with the clock. At 5 hours they are about 178% of what the same people would get through in two.
- Something before the mainslowers
People arrive at the table already 14% less hungry. The mains come down accordingly, and the sides with them.
- Helping themselvesraises
A buffet is taken from more than once. Each individual dish comes down; the total goes up.
- 9 dishesraises
Variety raises the total, but far less than one for one: each extra dish adds roughly a fifth of a dish's worth, not a whole one.
One person, six dishes, everything landing at 19:00. Order matters more than amount, and the only way to see it is backwards from the moment you serve. Hatched steps are the ones that do not have to happen today.
Making something earlier is a scheduling decision. How to keep it once it is made is a food safety question, and that is not something we answer.
Build this for your eveningCounting back
Quantities tell you how much.
This tells you when to start.
- 19:00, the day beforeDessert made and set aside — can be done ahead
- 23:00, the day beforeBread baked, or ordered for collection — can be done ahead
- 12:00Cold nibbles assembled onto their serving dishes — can be done ahead
- 13:00Sides prepped to the point of cooking — can be done ahead
- 15:00Salad washed and dried, dressing made separately — can be done ahead
- 15:24Mains prepped — everything weighed, trimmed, portioned — can be done ahead
- 17:10Mains on
- 18:10Sides in
- 18:15Table or serving surface set for 12
- 18:25Nibbles out where people are standing
- 18:40Warm serving dishes out, oven emptied of anything not being served
- 18:50Salad dressed
- 19:00Serve
Before today
What does not have to happen today
- Nibbles
- A day ahead for anything assembled cold
- Sides
- The morning of
- Bread
- A day ahead if you are baking it
- Dessert
- A day ahead
Honest about the edges
What we cannot know
- How much your guests actually eat. Two tables of twelve are never the same twelve.
- The weather. A warm evening moves people off hot food and onto everything cold.
- How popular each dish turns out to be. One of them will empty first and we cannot tell you which.
Start to finish
Four facts in, one page out
01
Say who is coming and for how long
A headcount and a number of hours. Then which of four shapes the thing is: seated, buffet, standing, or an afternoon. That is four facts and it is all we ask for.
02
Say how many dishes, not what they are
Three kinds of nibbles, one main, two sides. We never ask what you are cooking. Naming the dishes would invite exactly the questions this tool is not allowed to answer, and it would not change a single figure — quantity depends on the shape of the menu, not its contents.
03
Take the sheet and the timeline
Quantities per dish as ranges, what can be made ahead, a timeline counting back from the moment you serve, and a straight answer about what will be left over. One page, printable, made to be stuck up somewhere.
What you actually get
A sheet, not a chat log
You will notice there are no photographs of food on this site. That is not an aesthetic decision. We never see your food, we cannot tell you anything about its condition, and showing you a beautiful plate of something would imply otherwise.
Pricing
The quantities are free. The order is what you pay for.
The free tier gives you a quantity sheet, watermarked, twice a month — how much of everything to make. What it does not give you is the count-back: when to start, and which three things you could have done yesterday.
That is the part worth six dollars. One person putting six dishes on a table at the same time is a scheduling problem, and running out of hob at seven o'clock is a worse evening than being fifty grams light on the potatoes.
What each thing costs
- Ask a question and get quantities back
- 1
- Generate a quantity sheet
- 3
- Generate a count-back timeline
- 5
Whatever your plan is, the food safety notice, the allergen notice and the list of what we cannot know are never watermarked, never truncated and never behind the paywall.
Free
$0 /month
Free, and it stays free. Prices include VAT at 20%.
Enough to find out whether a quantity sheet is a thing you actually use.
50 credits a month
- Two quantity sheets a month
- Quantities per dish, always as a range
- What raises and lowers the numbers
- An honest note on what will be left over
- What we cannot know, on every result
- No count-back timeline
- Quantity sheet carries a watermark
- No print layout
Table · fits most evenings
$6 /month
or $58 a year — 19% less than paying monthly. Prices include VAT at 20%.
For the evening where six dishes have to land at the same time and there is one of you.
360 credits a month
- Unlimited quantity sheets
- The count-back timeline, from the moment you serve
- What can be made ahead, and how far ahead
- No watermark
- Print layout — one page for the fridge door
- One saved menu at a time
Feast
$19 /month
or $182 a year — 20% less than paying monthly. Prices include VAT at 20%.
For the person who does this often enough to want last time's numbers in front of them.
1300 credits a month
- Everything in Table
- An archive of past occasions
- Reusable menu templates
- Record what was actually left and calibrate the next one
- Priority queue
Every plan renews until you cancel, and cancelling takes the same two clicks that starting does — from the billing page, with no phone call and no email to anybody. An allowance is a usage allowance: it is not money, it is not stored value, it cannot be cashed out or transferred, and it does not carry into the next month. There are no credit packs and no top-ups. Currency is US Dollars (USD).
Questions
Including two we will not answer
The first two are the ones people most want a food site to answer. They are open by default so that nobody has to click to find out we refuse.
The leftovers — are they still good tomorrow?
We do not answer that, and we will not answer it in any indirect form either. This is a portion calculator. It has no way of knowing what you cooked, how it was handled or what condition it is in, and a wrong answer here can put someone in hospital.
Anything about whether food is safe to eat needs your national food safety authority, not a portion calculator. When in doubt, throw it out.
One of my guests has an allergy. Can you help me work around it?
No. We do not identify, judge or manage allergens, and we do not tell you whether a dish is suitable for anyone.
Ask your guests directly, and check every ingredient label yourself. A mistake here can be serious. What we can still do is tell you how much to make — that part is a legitimate question and it does not change.
Why is every number a range?
Because a single number would be a lie. Twelve people is not a measurement, it is twelve appetites you have never weighed. Catering works in ranges for the same reason, and we would rather show you the band than pretend to a precision nobody has. If you want the narrow end, take the lower figure and accept a slightly higher chance of a dish emptying.
Will I have leftovers?
Yes, and that is the design. Quantities that aim not to run short leave some behind — usually somewhere between a sixth and a quarter of the mains and sides, depending on the format. We tell you roughly how much before you shop, so it is a decision rather than a surprise. Leftovers are not a failure of the plan; running out in front of people is.
Where do the numbers come from, and does an AI make them up?
The coefficients are a fixed local table derived from standard event catering practice — base quantity per head per course, adjusted for format, hours, whether anything comes before the mains, headcount and the number of dishes. The arithmetic runs in your browser and you can read it in the page source. A language model is only ever used to read a sentence you typed and pick the four inputs out of it; it never invents a quantity. See the AI notice for exactly what it does and does not do.
What happens to what I type in? Do you keep my guest list?
We never ask for one. This tool takes a headcount, a duration, a format and a number of dishes — it collects nothing at all about the people coming, because it does not need to and because holding other people's data is a liability with no benefit. What you submit is not used to train any model, ours or anybody else's. Retention periods and how to delete an account are in the privacy policy.
Can I upload a photo of what I've made?
There is no way to. That is deliberate and it is not a filter — the feature does not exist. Once a service accepts photographs of food, people quite reasonably start asking whether something has gone off, whether it is cooked, and whether it contains a particular ingredient. Those are the three questions we must never answer, so the surest protection is that the door is not there.
How do subscriptions, cancellation and refunds work?
Plans renew until cancelled, and cancelling is two clicks on the billing page — the same effort as starting. You keep access to the end of the period you have paid for.
You have a statutory 14-day right to cancel a new subscription, and we voluntarily give you a fresh 14 days after every renewal as well. If you asked us to start straight away and acknowledged that this ends the cancellation right, that right ends — both of those are separate tick-boxes at checkout and neither is pre-ticked. The full detail, including the statutory cancellation form, is on cancellation.
Last thing
Estimate high and you throw food away.
Estimate low and someone gets bread.
Catering has had coefficients for this for decades. Anyone cooking for twelve at home has been guessing. That is the whole of it.
