How much should personal chefs charge?
Most independent personal chefs price a recurring weekly meal-prep session (shopping, cooking, and packaging several meals in one visit) as a flat session fee rather than a straight hourly rate, with groceries reimbursed at cost on top. Dinner parties and special events are usually quoted per person instead — use this calculator for your weekly meal-prep session rate, then price events separately (see notes).
Estimate your rate
A starting point for personal chef / meal prep — adjust to your own numbers.
~$248.80 / visit
Based on a 240-minute visit at an effective rate of ~$62.20/hour. Formula: (target income + expenses) ÷ (billable hours/week × 50 working weeks), converted to a per-visit price. This is a starting estimate, not a guarantee — adjust for local market rates.
What moves the rate
- Number of meals/servings prepared per session (e.g. 4 dinners for 2 people vs. 10 meals for a family of 4)
- Dietary complexity: allergies, specialized diets (keto, low-FODMAP, plant-based), or multiple different meal plans in one household
- Session length and prep-heavy vs. simple menus
- Grocery shopping included vs. client-provided ingredients
- In-home dinner parties and events, typically billed per person ($80-150+/person for a multi-course menu) rather than by the session
- Local cost of living and how many comparable personal chefs already serve your market
- Travel time/distance between clients and any tolls/parking
Base rate set at $65/hr labor, inside the commonly reported $55-100/hr median for independent personal chefs (entry-level/part-time runs $40-50/hr, specialized or high-end urban markets $100-175/hr). Converted to a per-visit price using a 4-hour default session (shop, cook, package multiple meals), landing around $260/session before groceries — consistent with the $240-500/week labor figures reported for weekly meal-prep services. For dinner parties and one-off events, don't use the per-visit output directly: quote per person instead ($80-150+ for a multi-course tasting menu, more in premium metros) since event pricing scales with guest count, not just chef hours. The $2,200/yr expense default covers general liability and food-handler/product liability insurance (~$300-600/yr), a personal knife kit and reusable meal-prep containers (~$500-800, amortized), a food handler/ServSafe certification renewal (~$150), scheduling/invoicing software (~$300-400/yr), and mileage/fuel for grocery runs and client travel (~$700-900/yr) — this assumes cooking in clients' home kitchens, not a rented commercial kitchen, which would add thousands more in facility costs.