How to Cost Café Drinks in the Philippines: Sizes, Add-ons and Selling Prices

To cost a café drink, divide each ingredient’s purchase cost by the quantity you can actually use, multiply that unit cost by the recipe portion, and add packaging and other costs that apply to the sale. Cost each size and substitution separately. Then test the selling price after discounts and channel charges to see what remains for staffing and other expenses.

For a Philippine café, record supplier packs and delivered costs in pesos. A one-litre milk carton, a kilogram of beans and a case of cups must all be converted to the units used in a drink. The price of the finished cup should also account for how it is sold: a takeaway cash sale and a delivery-platform sale may leave different amounts even when the drink recipe is identical.

This guide builds a two-size recipe worksheet, a modifier comparison and a channel calculation. All prices, yields, recipes and fees are hypothetical teaching inputs. They are neither current supplier quotations nor recommended Philippine café benchmarks.

What information belongs on a recipe-cost sheet?

Start with one named recipe and version. Record the portion the barista actually measures, rather than estimating it from the cup’s advertised capacity. An iced drink contains coffee, milk, syrup and ice; the cup size alone does not tell you the milk portion.

Keep these inputs:

• Supplier item, pack size, invoice date and cost on a consistent basis.
• Delivery or other purchase costs included in the input, with an allocation method when shared across products.
• Usable quantity and the evidence or assumption behind it.
• Recipe portions in grams, millilitres or pieces.
• Cup, lid and any other packaging used for the sale.
• Modifier recipe, including anything replaced by a substitution.
• Sale price, discount and actual channel charges to test separately.

Confirm the tax basis with your accountant before comparing sales and costs. The example is a simplified operating model: it does not calculate VAT, percentage tax or income tax. Do not mix tax-inclusive receipts with costs prepared on a different basis and call the result profit.

The TESDA Women’s Center recipe-costing appendix illustrates the useful sequence of quantity, purchase price, unit conversion and recipe cost. Its historical prices and percentage allowances are not current market evidence or rules for your café. The worksheet below uses independently constructed examples.

How do purchase packs become usable unit costs?

Usable unit cost = purchase cost allocated to the pack ÷ usable quantity from that pack.

If the units differ, convert them first: one kilogram is 1,000 grams and one litre is 1,000 millilitres. Confirm supplier pack counts for cups, lids and other items sold by the piece.

For this hypothetical café, assume the following planning inputs. The usable quantities include the particular losses assumed in this model; a real café should replace them with its own measured yield and waste evidence.

For beans, ₱950 ÷ 950 g = ₱1/g. An 18 g dose therefore costs ₱18 in this model. Dividing by the purchased 1,000 g instead would give ₱17.10 per dose and leave the assumed loss unallocated.

Do not add the same loss again as a separate percentage on the finished drink. Similarly, if milk left in the pitcher is already included in the assumed usable yield, adding it again to the recipe portion would count it twice. Use one documented method consistently.

Keep full precision in the working calculation and round the displayed peso results at the end. For example, 20 ml × (₱240 ÷ 720 ml) = ₱6.6666…, displayed as ₱6.67. Rounding syrup to ₱0.33/ml first would understate that portion as ₱6.60.

A worked recipe across two drink sizes

Consider two hypothetical iced-drink recipes. The small version uses 18 g beans, 150 ml dairy milk and 15 ml syrup. The large version uses the same bean dose, 220 ml milk and 20 ml syrup. The separate water-and-ice amounts below are assumed per-drink cost allocations.

These are costing examples, not tested beverage recipes or instructions to increase cup size without checking taste. Test your own portions and finished serving before putting them on the menu.

The large drink costs approximately ₱10.17 more on these inputs. A ₱10 price increase would not fully cover that added recipe-and-packaging cost, even before a percentage-based channel charge. A larger cup is not automatically a higher-contribution sale.

Use the actual packaging for each service type. A dine-in order may use a reusable cup, while a delivery order may need a carrier or seal. Record the relevant costs and their basis; do not charge every order for both takeaway packaging and a separate version of the same packaging.

How should you cost milk substitutions and extra coffee?

A substitution replaces something. Its incremental cost is the cost of the new ingredient minus the cost of the ingredient removed.

For the small drink, replacing 150 ml of dairy milk with 150 ml of the assumed oat drink adds 150 × (₱0.20 − ₱0.10) = ₱15. It does not add the full ₱30 oat portion on top of the existing ₱15 dairy portion.

An additional 18 g coffee dose adds ₱18 in this simplified model. Specify the actual dose: “extra shot” is too vague if staff use different coffee quantities. These examples assume a tested recipe that accommodates the extra dose without another ingredient or packaging change. If yours displaces milk or needs a larger cup, recalculate the whole variant.

The same milk-substitution price need not produce the same contribution across sizes. In the large recipe, the substitution adds ₱22, compared with ₱15 in the small recipe. A hypothetical ₱20 surcharge would leave ₱5 above incremental cost on the small version but fall ₱2 short on the large, before other variable charges.

Record sizes and modifiers clearly at checkout so the sales record distinguishes what was sold. Sentra’s POS sale instructions cover selecting the right products, variants and quantities. This does not establish that Sentra automatically calculates ingredient usage or recipe costs; the costing sheet must be maintained using verified records.

What is the difference between markup and margin?

Markup divides the amount above cost by cost. Margin divides that amount by selling price. The same percentage produces different prices because the denominators differ.

Using the small drink’s ₱44 recipe-and-packaging cost, with no other costs included:

Neither price is a recommendation. Both calculations leave staffing, rent and other costs to be considered. A recipe-cost percentage does not establish net profit, and a formula cannot tell you what customers will pay.

When using price = cost ÷ (1 − target margin), the target must be below 100%, and the cost must match the margin you intend to measure. A margin calculated only against ingredients and packaging must not be labeled whole-business net margin.

How do delivery charges change contribution?

Contribution per sale = selling amount retained before the listed channel charges − the variable costs and charges included in the model. State what the model includes so readers do not mistake the remainder for final profit.

For the next hypothetical comparison, use the ₱44 small base drink. Assume no discount, no separately modeled tax, no additional variable labor and no other unlisted per-order charge. Cash takeaway has no channel fee in this example. Delivery adds a ₱3 bag/seal and an invented fee equal to 25% of the listed selling price. The percentage is an arithmetic assumption, not the tariff of any Philippine platform.

Although the delivery price is ₱20 higher, the model leaves ₱13 less per drink. Staffing, rent, equipment and any other costs outside this table still need to be covered.

To find the delivery price that preserves the example’s ₱56 contribution under exactly these assumptions:

Required price = (₱44 recipe/packaging + ₱3 delivery packaging + ₱56 target contribution) ÷ (1 − 0.25) = ₱137.3333…

At an illustrative rounded price of ₱138, the charge would be ₱34.50 and the remainder ₱138 − ₱34.50 − ₱44 − ₱3 = ₱56.50. This shows the calculation, not a proposed menu price or confirmation that a merchant’s contract permits different channel prices.

Before using this model, read the actual merchant agreement and statement. Identify the charge basis, applicable tax, who funds a discount, fixed fees, refunds and other adjustments. A percentage applied after a promotion or to a different base changes the answer. For a multi-drink order, allocate order-level packaging and fixed fees once across that order; do not charge every drink for the full order cost.

What should you update when supplier costs change?

Recalculate the input that changed and trace its effect through affected recipes. With the same assumed 900 ml usable yield, a milk carton increasing from ₱90 to ₱108 raises usable milk cost from ₱0.10 to ₱0.12/ml.

• The small recipe’s 150 ml portion rises by ₱3, taking its cost from ₱44 to ₱47.
• The large recipe’s 220 ml portion rises by ₱4.40, taking its cost from ₱54.17 to approximately ₱58.57.

Yield changes matter too. If the bean pack still costs ₱950 but usable beans fall from 950 g to 900 g, the 18 g dose rises from ₱18 to ₱19. Investigate the loss before assuming the solution is always a price increase.

Keep the recipe model separate from actual stock reconciliation. The ingredient-use worksheet explains how to compare recipe usage, separately logged waste and physical counts. Do not multiply a loss-adjusted purchasing quantity into that stock ledger and then subtract the same recorded waste again.

Keep a costing record you can revise

For each size and modifier, retain recipe version; supplier invoice and date; purchase unit; usable-yield basis; portion; packaging; unrounded calculation; displayed cost; price; channel assumptions; contribution; and next review trigger.

Mark an unknown input as missing, not zero. Use a new supplier quote, a recipe change, an altered fee arrangement or a sustained yield difference as a reason to review the sheet. If an ingredient is shared across drinks, updating its unit cost should lead to a check of every affected recipe.

After selling the drink, use the POS sales-report guide to interpret demand and adjustments. For the separate question of how many orders the whole café needs to cover costs, use the café operating model. A well-costed drink still needs a viable mix of sales, capacity and overhead.

Sources and product documentation reviewed September 20, 2026. These are illustrative calculations using stated assumptions; no current supplier pricing, platform fee quotation or tested drink recipe is claimed.