Catering quote software: from enquiry to priced proposal in minutes
Most catering quotes take a day or two to get out, because the details are scattered across an inbox and the costing lives in a spreadsheet. The caterer who replies first usually wins the job. This drafts the quote from the enquiry using your own menus and prices, so getting it out is minutes rather than an evening.
Why speed is the whole game
A client enquiring about a wedding is enquiring with three or four caterers in the same hour. The one who comes back with a real, priced, readable proposal first is in a different conversation from the ones who come back on Thursday. Not because the food is better — because by Thursday the client has anchored on somebody else's number.
That is also why the quote has to be costed, not guessed. Fast and wrong is how caterers end up catering for free.
What happens
- The enquiry is captured properly. The chat on your site asks for date, venue, guest count, service style and dietary needs while the client is still on the page.
- A menu is drafted against the brief. From your recipes, scaled to the count.
- It is costed from your prices. Food cost and margin visible before the number goes to the client.
- The proposal is drafted. Dishes, descriptions, dietary flags, terms, the price — readable, in your voice, without your recipe quantities or costs on it.
- You adjust and send. Minutes, not an evening.
- Quiet quotes get flagged. A quote nobody replied to eleven days ago is the most common place catering revenue goes missing.
What the client sees, and does not see
They see the dishes, the descriptions, the dietary flags, the price and the terms. They never see quantities, methods, ingredient costs or your margin. That split is enforced in the product, not left to you remembering.
Deposits turn a quote into a booking
Accepting the proposal flows into the deposit request and the event record, so a "yes" does not become a second round of data entry. From there it is invoicing and the event.
Price
Starter is $99/mo for one seat and Pro is $149/mo for three. Every feature is on both plans — they differ on seats, storage and how much AI you get each month. Extra seats are $15/mo. The 14-day free trial takes no credit card. See pricing.
Related reading
How to write a catering proposal covers the structure, and how to price catering covers the number.
Questions people ask
How fast can I get a quote out?
Minutes for a menu you have costed before, because the draft comes from the enquiry and your own priced recipes rather than a blank page.
Are the quotes actually costed, or just templated?
Costed from your recipes and supplier prices, with the food cost and margin visible to you before you send it.
Will clients see my costs or recipe quantities?
No. Quantities, methods, costs and margin never appear on a client-facing proposal.
Does it follow up on quotes that go quiet?
Quiet quotes are flagged in the pipeline and the follow-up is drafted for you. That is the single highest-value habit most caterers are missing.
What happens when the client says yes?
Acceptance flows into the deposit request and the event record, so the booking does not mean retyping everything you already quoted.
Ten minutes gets a real event in — your menu, your prices, a quote you could send. The 14-day trial takes no credit card.