Questions before you try CostCook?
Straight answers on the money, the fit, and the catch. All 39 are open on this page, so read the ones you came for.
The trial, the bill, and leaving
What you pay, when the card gets charged, and how to walk away.
Back to the top- What does the trial actually cost?
- Nothing for 15 days. Stripe takes a card when you start and charges $0 during the trial. For a founding kitchen, billing begins on day 16 at $49/month per kitchen unless you have cancelled. The regular price is $99/month per kitchen. Prices plus tax.
- Why a card up front?
- Because the trial is the subscription. Stripe holds the card, and the subscription bills automatically on day 16 unless you cancel first.
- How do I cancel?
- The owner cancels from Settings, then Billing, through Stripe. No email to me, no notice period, no talking anyone out of it. Cancel inside the trial and nothing is ever charged.
- Is $49/month the price, or a promotion?
- Founding offer open now. $49/month per kitchen is locked in for life. The offer is limited to the first 20 kitchens. The regular price is $99/month per kitchen. Teammates are unlimited. Prices plus tax.
- Do I pay per person?
- No. The subscription is per kitchen, not per teammate. The owner manages billing and invites the crew. Teammates are unlimited.
- Can I take my work with me if I leave?
- The whole recipe book exports as a spreadsheet from the recipe list, any time. Ingredient prices do not export yet. That one is on me to build.
Whether it fits your kitchen
The kind of kitchen it suits, and the limits that could rule it out for yours.
Back to the top- Who is this for?
- Caterers, and restaurants that cater, run by an owner-operator with a small crew. You price jobs that change, you buy for dates rather than a steady week, and nobody down the hall owns the spreadsheet. Start with one dish. When the next inquiry comes in, build its menu, send the proposal, and plan the job from there. Meal-prep kitchens fit too; who it is for says how.
- I run a restaurant. Will CostCook fit?
- Yes, for the part of your business that comes with a date and a guest count: catering, special dinners, a menu that keeps changing. CostCook carries that job from the inquiry and the proposal through recipe costing, shopping, prep, pack, purchasing and food cost. Your regular service can keep running the way it does. The comparison page lists the limits that might still matter to you.
- We have more than one kitchen. Can each see its own shelf?
- No. One subscription covers one kitchen. There is no per-site inventory and no roll-up across sites.
- Can I choose which screens each teammate sees?
- No. There is no per-screen control or custom role; the role draws the line. A cook on Staff gets orders, prep and pack lists, deliveries and recipes, with costs and margins taken out. Analytics, Sage, setup, imports and the Clients book stay with owners and managers. The Team & Access guide names every boundary.
- What do Owner, Manager and Staff mean?
- The Owner runs billing, the team and kitchen settings, and publishes recipes. Managers see the money: costs, Analytics, Sage, clients and purchasing, and they can finish setup and approve Sage drafts. Staff work from orders, prep and pack lists, deliveries and recipes, and never see costs. When you invite someone, you pick Staff or Manager. See the team role comparison for each action.
- Does it do lot tracking for FSMA 204?
- No. CostCook does not provide the lot tracking a facility under a traceability rule needs.
- Does it do nutrition labels?
- As a calculated estimate, yes. The fifteen nutrients an FDA panel carries are computed per recipe and per portion, from the USDA FoodData Central record you match to each ingredient. When a value is missing, the recipe says so instead of counting it as zero. Once every ingredient source is confirmed and no line is blank, Print label on the recipe makes a sheet with the panel, the ingredient statement and the allergen line, and your browser prints it onto label stock. Until then the recipe calls it a draft estimate and will not print it. The sheet says it is a calculated estimate, not a retail-label compliance claim.
- Kitchen date labels are a separate feature; see the kitchen labels answer.
- Can I check a menu against guest allergies and diets?
- Yes. Record who is eating on the order, by allergen or by diet, and every dish is judged against them from the ingredient facts your kitchen confirmed. Vegetarian, vegan, halal, kosher and gluten-free. Each dish comes back conflict, check or clear, with the ingredient named, and the answer prints on the prep and pack lists. It detects, it never certifies. Halal and kosher can only ever be a check, because slaughter and certification are facts the app cannot see. An ingredient nobody reviewed is never counted as clear.
- Does it print kitchen labels with a use-by date?
- Yes. Tap Label on the prep or pack list, a recipe, or an ingredient; choose the storage condition; settle the use-by date yourself; count the containers; and print through your browser onto measured sheet or roll stock. The recorded label is frozen for reprints.
- There is no direct connection to a label printer; the output is the browser print dialog.
- Is there a Spanish version?
- A Spanish version is Coming soon. CostCook is English only today, and no date is promised.
- What is Sage?
- An assistant inside CostCook with twenty-two read-only tools across the shift, orders, recipes, stock, buying and setup. Every answer shows where its numbers came from. It can prepare three kinds of draft (the kitchen shopping list, one order’s shopping list, and a guest-count change on a draft order). Nothing changes until an owner or manager approves the draft. It cannot reach another kitchen and it never changes a record on its own.
- Sage is available now, and it is there during setup too. The questions it starts you on depend on the setup stage you are in and what you have entered so far, and Back to setup takes you to the stage you left unfinished. See the Sage feature guide and video.
- Does it connect to Square or QuickBooks?
- No. Square, QuickBooks and an API for your own connections are marked Coming. They are not in the trial or the subscription, and I am not promising a date. If you cannot run without them, look at the comparison page first.
How the work moves
What happens to a quote once it is real: the buy, the truck, the shelf, the prep and the pack.
Back to the top- Can clients pay the event deposit by card?
- Yes. The client pays the deposit and the balance by card from a link in an email, and CostCook shows what was asked for against what came in. Three days before the balance is due, if it is still owed, the client gets a reminder email with a pay link. You can still record a payment by hand, as a check, cash, a transfer or your own card processor.
- Can clients order from me through CostCook?
- Yes. Put your menus on an ordering page of your own, or on a site you already have. A client picks a menu, the dishes and a date (closed and full dates are greyed out), chooses pickup or delivery, and sends the request. Nothing is charged, and it arrives awaiting kitchen confirmation rather than as a booked event. You approve or decline it, or let clear requests approve themselves.
- Your booking rules decide what approval does. A new account takes no online payment, so approving confirms the order. Set a rule to pay in full, or a deposit then the balance, and approval emails the client a pay link instead: they pay on Stripe’s page, into your own Stripe account, within 72 hours, and that payment confirms the order. A balance gets its own pay link and one reminder email. CostCook works out every amount after the selections arrive; the browser sends what the client chose, without prices. A bespoke request, or one your booking rules send to you, takes no money and comes to you to price. There are no saved cards and no automatic refunds.
- Will it tell me my margin?
- It tells you food cost: the theoretical food cost of an event, the food-cost percentage against a target you set, and the selling price that would meet that target. Labor and overhead are not in it. Where the event totals and recipe pricing show a food-only gross margin, it is the price less food cost, not your business margin after labor and overhead.
- How does a proposal get its food cost?
- From your costed recipes. Build the event menu from them or from a saved menu, and the menu and service step shows its food cost before the proposal goes to the client. For a job you take by phone without a proposal, a draft order shows revenue, theoretical food cost, food cost per guest and the percentage against your target. Until you press Confirm order, those numbers follow your current ingredient prices.
- When is the event actually booked?
- When you press Book the event. The client’s yes on the proposal books nothing; Book the event waits on the signed agreement and the deposit. Confirm order comes later and locks the kitchen’s quantities and prices.
- If a supplier price changes after I quote, does my quote change?
- No, not the price you sent. A sent proposal is fixed; changing it means sending the client a new one. The food cost behind it keeps following your ingredient prices until you press Confirm order, which freezes the plan, its costing inputs and its money. After that, new prices update your catalog and any draft orders, and the confirmed order shows you quoted-versus-today so you can see the drift, but nothing rewrites it.
- The client added forty guests. What do I retype?
- The guest count.
- Recipes scale from it, shared ingredients roll together, whole packs recalculate, and the Shop, Prep and Pack tabs stay on the same plan.
- If you already pressed Confirm order, reopen it as a draft first, change the count, and confirm again. That works until you create a purchase order for it or start receiving. Reopening refreshes quantities and prices from the menu as it is today.
- What does the shopping list look like?
- Grouped by supplier, rounded to the whole packs you actually buy, with a subtotal for each supplier. A stock or a mirepoix shows up as a batch to make, not something to shop for. A recent count you trust takes stock off the buy. A missing or stale count does not.
- Does it send the purchase orders?
- Yes, when you say so. Confirming an order contacts no supplier. When you are ready, press Order from suppliers and pick Email, Print or I’ll buy it for each supplier, or choose I’ll shop it myself. Each purchase order has its own number, in whole packs. Email is email: the app records the send, and I do not promise delivery into anyone’s inbox.
- What happens when the truck is short?
- You mark the line short, and it stays in view until you follow it up. Check what actually came off the truck against what you ordered: full, over, short, substituted, missing or unexpected, with the received value next to the ordered value. Look over the quantities and prices, then save the delivery.
- How does the price I paid get back into my costing?
- The newest qualifying purchase, by purchase date, can become the current price of that ingredient, with the receiving it came from on record. It moves future costing and draft orders. It never rewrites a confirmed order.
- Can I shop and prep for several events at once?
- Yes, for the planning. Create two to twelve events together and they open one Shop, Prep and Pack workspace. The shopping and the prep are totaled across all of them, and the pack list keeps a column for each event. Confirming, freezing prices and sending purchase orders still happen one order at a time. The combined run does not confirm or buy anything.
- Is the inventory a live count?
- No. A physical count sets the baseline; purchases, waste and completed Pack move it from there, and the app tells you how fresh the number is. You can set a par level per ingredient and it will tell you whether you are below it, judged only from a trusted count. Inventory > Build shopping list builds what to buy for confirmed events and your par, by supplier. Only a recent count is taken off the buy.
Getting started, and getting help
Getting your prices and recipes in, using it on a phone, and who picks up when you write.
Back to the top- What does setup actually involve?
- One dish you already cook, not your whole walk-in. A skippable welcome asks what kind of kitchen you run and the name of that dish. Then five stages ask for what the dish needs next: your kitchen and one supplier, the dish’s ingredients and their pack prices, their food facts, the dish itself, then a menu with a date and a guest count.
- It ends on that dish’s plate cost with the arithmetic beside it, and a shopping list in whole packs. See the five stages, the number they end on, and what comes after.
- What do I do after setup, and how does my crew get in?
- Setup ends with your first order made and its shopping list one tap away. The next dishes come in through the same doors as the first: a photo, a PDF, a spreadsheet, a Word document or pasted text, ready for you to review before saving.
- To bring in the crew, open Settings, then Team & access, add their email and pick Staff or Manager. They get a one-time sign-in link and need no password. See the after-setup part of the guide.
- How do my supplier prices get in?
- Photograph the price list, drop in the PDF or the Word document, upload the spreadsheet, or paste the text. Check the supplier, the ingredients, the pack sizes and the prices before you save. Nothing changes your costing until you save, and anything it could not read comes back exactly as it appeared, not guessed at. You can still key an awkward invoice in by hand.
- Do I have to type every ingredient?
- No. CostCook comes with roughly 1,500 ingredient names and supplier abbreviations, so your paperwork has something to match against. Your own pack sizes and prices you still enter or import.
- How do my recipes get in?
- Upload a photo, PDF, spreadsheet or document, or paste the recipe text, and look the draft over before you save it. A recipe can carry sub-recipes and a trim yield on each line, and the yield changes how much you buy as well as what the plate costs.
- Does it work on a phone in a walk-in with one bar?
- Previously loaded order pages remain readable with no signal and show when they were cached, so open the order before you walk into the cooler. A page you had not loaded shows the offline fallback instead, and actions that write data need a connection.
- Who answers when I write?
- I do. Ask on the contact page and the answer comes back to the address you leave, or call 973-870-6309. Inside the app, Contact support sends your account email and the screen you are on with the message.
- Can someone run my menu through it before I start?
- Yes. Book fifteen minutes and bring one menu and a guest count. We put it through and you see the shopping list, the prep sheet, the pack list and the food cost it gives back. Your numbers, not a sales demo’s.
Put one real order through it.
Give your first dish about fifteen minutes. Then bring a menu and a guest count you already quoted, and see what comes back before you move the rest of the kitchen.
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Founding offer open now: 15 days free, then $49/month per kitchen, locked in for life. Limited to the first 20 kitchens. Regular price $99/month per kitchen; unlimited crew. Prices plus tax. Card required; $0 today. Cancel before day 16 in Settings → Billing, no call required. What to prepare · Plan and team limits
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