Why "cost per serving" matters more than "cost per recipe"

A recipe that costs £18 sounds expensive next to one that costs £9 — until you notice the first one serves six and the second serves two. Cost per recipe, on its own, doesn't tell you anything useful. Cost per serving does.

The comparison that actually matters

£18 ÷ 6 servings is £3/serving. £9 ÷ 2 servings is £4.50/serving. The "expensive-looking" recipe is actually the cheaper meal, per portion — the opposite of what the total price suggested at a glance. This isn't an edge case; it's the normal situation any time recipes with different yields get compared by total cost alone.

Where this trips people up most

Recipe websites and cookbooks rarely lead with per-serving cost — they show a total, if they show a price at all, and leave the division to the reader. Batch recipes look artificially expensive next to single-serving ones for exactly this reason, even when they're the better value once divided out.

Restaurant and takeaway comparisons suffer the same issue in reverse — a dish priced "per portion" already, compared against a recipe's un-divided total, makes home cooking look worse than it is.

The habit worth building

Before comparing two meals' cost, check they're being compared on the same basis — per serving, not per recipe, per pot, or per pack. It's a small mental step that prevents a lot of "that's expensive" reactions that wouldn't survive the actual division.

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This is exactly why Mealconomy shows cost per serving on every recipe and every meal in a plan, not a recipe total — so the number on screen is already the one that's actually comparable, with no division required.