
The short version: Charge about $50 for a 13x9 pan of meatless lasagna that serves 12, which is $4.17 a serving, and about $70 for a meat lasagna made in a rented commercial kitchen. Both prices sit inside the $45 to $94.99 that six Italian delis charge for a small or half tray. The ingredients for a classic 13x9 meat lasagna cost $23.19 at Walmart.com prices on October 1, 2026, or $1.93 a serving, plus $1.99 for a foil pan with a lid. Lasagna made with meat or ricotta needs refrigeration, and of the three states in this guide only California's same-day home restaurant permit lets you sell beef or pork lasagna from a home kitchen, so in those three states a meat lasagna vendor outside California's permit pays kitchen rent that the price has to cover.
Checked October 1, 2026: lasagna tray prices on the catering pages of Tony's Italian Deli & Subs, Tredici Italian Market, LaCascia's Bakery & Deli, Cavaretta's Italian Deli, Italia Deli & Bakery and Verdi's Market & Deli; supply and frozen lasagna prices on Walmart.com; the Taste of Home Classic Lasagna recipe; three commercial kitchen rate pages; a live pull of Homegrown's catalog; the pricing pages of Homegrown and Hotplate (card processing on both is 2.9% + $0.30, paid by you); Square's fee page; and the California, Texas and Wyoming rules below. Honest bounds: store prices change weekly and by store, and the 12 servings and 55 minutes of prep come from one published recipe, not our own kitchen test. Every price here assumes you sell through a legal route, so verify your state's current rules before you sell. On Homegrown, customers create an account to place a first order, there is no drops feature, and you should plan on most orders coming from people you send to your own link.
Your lasagna is the dish people ask you to bring. Now a neighbor wants one for her freezer and a coworker wants two for a family reunion, and you have no idea whether to say $25 or $75.
Most pricing advice for lasagna gives a wide range with no source and stops there. This guide builds your price from numbers checked on October 1, 2026: what six Italian delis charge for a tray, what grocery store lasagna costs, what a 13x9 pan costs you to make, what your time and a rented kitchen add, and what card fees take from each order. It also covers the part most guides skip, which is where you can legally sell the lasagna you are pricing.
We recommend $50 for a 13x9 pan of cheese or spinach lasagna that serves 12, and $70 for a 13x9 meat lasagna made in a rented commercial kitchen. If you hold a California home restaurant permit and can sell meat lasagna from your own kitchen, $55 covers your costs with room to spare. A 13x9 pan cut 12 ways at $50 works out to $4.17 a serving, which is close to the bottom of what delis charge per serving and well above what the ingredients cost you.
Here is a price ladder most part-time lasagna vendors can start from:
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| Lasagna | Pan | Serves | Suggested price | Per serving | Your ingredient cost | When it fits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cheese or spinach (no meat) | 13x9 | 12 | $50 | $4.17 | $17.92 plus a $1.99 pan | A home kitchen where your state allows it, or a licensed kitchen |
| Meat (sausage and beef), home kitchen | 13x9 | 12 | $55 | $4.58 | $23.19 plus a $1.99 pan | California counties that approved home restaurant permits, same day only |
| Meat (sausage and beef), rented kitchen | 13x9 | 12 | $70 | $5.83 | $23.19 plus a $1.99 pan plus $12.50 rent at 8 pans a booking | Anywhere you hold a license to sell it |
| Cheese or spinach, small | 8x8 | 6 | $32 | $5.33 | $8.96 plus a pan | A couple, a small household, a first order |
| Meat, small | 8x8 | 6 | $36 | $6.00 | $11.60 plus a pan | A California home restaurant permit kitchen; from a rented kitchen, the $12.50 rent makes it about $47, which still pays about $21 an hour |
| Single portion | Takeout container | 1 | $7 | $7.00 | $1.93 plus a container | Lunch buyers and pickup add-ons |
Ingredient costs use the Taste of Home Classic Lasagna recipe (13x9, 12 servings) priced on Walmart.com on October 1, 2026. An 8x8 pan holds a little over half of a 13x9, so its cost is half the recipe. Rent assumes a 4-hour kitchen booking at $25 an hour for 8 pans. At 4 pans a booking the rent doubles to $25 a pan, and $70 falls 84 cents short of covering your time at $20 an hour and the card fee, before any extra hourly charge for the oven.
Use the ladder as a starting point, then adjust for your town. If the delis near you charge $90 for a half tray, $50 leaves money on the table. If your buyers are families feeding six on a budget, the 8x8 at $32 may sell faster than the 13x9. If you also sell weekly single meals, our meal prep pricing guide shows how to price individual containers next to your family pans.
Six Italian delis that post their catering prices online charge $45 to $94.99 for a small or half tray of lasagna and $80 to $179.99 for a large or full tray. Per serving, using each deli's own serving count, that is $4.00 to $10.83. These are businesses with storefronts, commercial kitchens and staff, so they set the top of your range, not the floor.
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| Deli | Location | Small or half tray | Large or full tray | Per serving | What the menu says |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tony's Italian Deli & Subs | Chicago, IL | $45 (10x13 pan, serves 8 to 10) | $80 (13x21 pan, serves 15 to 20) | $4.00 to $5.63 | Meat, meatless or vegetable; picked up cold |
| Tredici Italian Market | Wayne, PA | $62 (serves 6 to 9) | $124 (serves 12 to 18) | $6.89 to $10.33 | Meat with meatballs and Italian sausage, or spinach |
| LaCascia's Bakery & Deli | Burlington, MA | $85 (16 servings) | $140 (32 servings) | $4.38 to $5.31 | Meat, roasted vegetable or cheese |
| Cavaretta's Italian Deli | Canoga Park, CA | $65 (feeds 6 to 8) | $130 (feeds 15 to 18) | $7.22 to $10.83 | Traditional, all cheese or spinach; reheat 2 hours at 350 degrees |
| Italia Deli & Bakery | Agoura Hills, CA | $94.99 (13 x 10 x 3 1/2 tray) | $179.99 (21 x 13 x 4 tray) | Not listed | Meat (beef and pork) or meatless with spinach |
| Verdi's Market & Deli | Mentor, OH | $70 (half pan, 12 pieces) | Not listed | $5.83 | Also a single baked lasagna entree at $12.95 |
We checked each deli's catering page or menu on October 1, 2026. Per serving divides the tray price by the deli's own serving range.
In a pull of the Homegrown catalog on October 1, 2026, none of the 2,744 products from 308 vendors was a finished lasagna. We counted a listing only when the thing sold was an assembled lasagna, baked or unbaked, after searching names, descriptions, categories and size options and reading all 171 ready-to-eat listings. The closest matches were lasagna noodles: Nonna's Table sells fresh egg lasagna noodles at $7.25 a pound and sourdough semolina noodles at $7.00 a pound. Family-size pans of other dishes are listed, such as a $150 pastalaya party pan from Smoky Butts BBQ that comes in a 20 by 12 by 3 inch pan.
Three things stand out in that table:
A Stouffer's family size lasagna with meat sauce costs $9.84 for 38 ounces at Walmart, and the store brand runs $14.87 for 90 ounces, or 16.5 cents an ounce. That is the price some shoppers will hold in their head when they see your $50 pan, so you need to know it even though it is not your competition.
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| Grocery lasagna (frozen) | Size | Price | Per ounce |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stouffer's Family Size Lasagna with Meat & Sauce | 38 oz | $9.84 | 25.9 cents |
| Stouffer's Classic Lasagna with Meat & Sauce, Large Family Size | 3.563 lb (57 oz) | $13.48 | 23.6 cents |
| Great Value Italian-Style Lasagna with Meat Sauce | 35 oz | $7.88 | 22.5 cents |
| Great Value Lasagna with Meat Sauce | 90 oz | $14.87 | 16.5 cents |
Walmart.com search pages, default store, checked October 1, 2026. Prices vary by store and change weekly.
The buyer who orders a homemade lasagna is not shopping by the ounce. She wants real ricotta, fresh noodles or her grandmother's recipe, and she wants to skip two hours in the kitchen. Your listing should say what is in the pan and how many it feeds, so the comparison she makes is with the deli, not the freezer aisle.
One 13x9 meat lasagna from the Taste of Home Classic Lasagna recipe costs $23.19 in ingredients at Walmart.com prices on October 1, 2026, which is $1.93 for each of its 12 servings. Add $1.99 for a foil pan with a lid and you are at $25.18 before your time. Without the sausage and beef, the same pan costs $17.92.
We priced the Taste of Home Classic Lasagna recipe, which makes one 13x9 pan with 12 servings and lists 55 minutes of prep. Where a recipe uses part of a package, we charged only that part, except for ingredients you would rarely use up, which we charged in full.
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| Ingredient (recipe amount) | What we priced | Cost per pan |
|---|---|---|
| Ricotta, 2 cartons of 15 oz | Great Value whole milk ricotta, 15 oz, $2.67 each | $5.34 |
| Diced tomatoes, 2 cans of 28 oz | Great Value, 28 oz, $1.67 each | $3.34 |
| Ground beef, 1/2 lb | 80/20 ground beef chuck, 1 lb, $6.63 | $3.31 |
| Italian sausage, 1/2 lb | Marketside mild ground Italian sausage, 1 lb, $3.92 | $1.96 |
| Mozzarella, 2 cups shredded (8 oz) | Great Value part-skim, 16 oz, $3.48 | $1.74 |
| Onion, 1 1/2 cups chopped | 2 whole yellow onions at $0.71 | $1.42 |
| Lasagna noodles, 12 oz | Great Value lasagna, 16 oz, $1.88 | $1.41 |
| Parsley, 1/3 cup | Italian parsley bunch, charged whole | $1.07 |
| Parmesan, 3/4 cup grated | Great Value grated, 8 oz, $3.18 | $1.05 |
| Tomato paste, 2 tbsp | Great Value 6 oz can, charged whole | $0.92 |
| Garlic, 3 cloves | One bulb, charged whole | $0.72 |
| Carrot, 1 cup chopped | Half a pound from a 2 lb bag, $2.26 | $0.56 |
| Egg, 1 large | Great Value 12 count, $1.67 | $0.14 |
| Sugar, salt, pepper, oregano, basil, pepper flakes | Great Value jars, by the teaspoon | $0.21 |
| Total ingredients | $23.19 | |
| Foil pan with lid | Great Value 13x9 aluminum pans with board lids, 2 for $3.98 | $1.99 |
| Ingredients plus pan | $25.18 |
Walmart.com search pages, default store, checked October 1, 2026. Recipe amounts from Taste of Home's Classic Lasagna recipe, loaded the same day.
Your own number will be different, and it should be. Whole milk mozzarella from an Italian market, fresh pasta sheets or a second pound of meat can push the same pan past $35. Price the recipe you actually make, one ingredient at a time, the way the table does. Our guide to working out your real cost per item walks through the same method for any product.
Ricotta is the single biggest cost in a classic lasagna at $5.34 a pan, followed by canned tomatoes at $3.34 and ground beef at $3.31. The cheese layer as a whole (ricotta, mozzarella, Parmesan and the egg) comes to $8.27, more than a third of the $23.19 total.
Cost per 13x9 pan, top seven ingredients
Source: Walmart.com prices checked October 1, 2026, applied to the Taste of Home Classic Lasagna recipe.
That ranking tells you where your price is exposed when grocery prices move:
Recheck these four lines every few months. If ricotta goes up $1 a carton and beef goes up $1 a pound, your meat pan has quietly lost $2.50 of margin, and your $50 cheese pan $2.
At $20 an hour, the 55 minutes of prep in the Taste of Home recipe adds $18.33 to every pan, which brings a meat lasagna's full cost to $43.51 before any kitchen rent. At $15 an hour the time costs $13.75. Home cooks often leave this line out, which is how a pan ends up priced at $25.
The recipe's 55 minutes of cooking is all oven time: 45 minutes covered and 10 more uncovered. Its prep time is listed two ways on the same page, 45 minutes in the summary line and 55 minutes in the recipe card, and the recipe does not say whether either one includes the 45-minute sauce simmer. This guide charges the full 55 minutes as labor, but your own hands-on time may run longer, so time your first pan before you lock in a price. You can assemble a second pan while the sauce simmers and the first pan bakes, so batching is where your hourly pay improves.
Make your sauce for four pans in one pot. One pot of sauce for four pans takes longer to thicken than the recipe's 45-minute simmer for one batch, but far less than four separate simmers, and assembly goes fast once you have a line of four foil pans on the counter. Before your first sale, cut one test pan into 12 and check that each piece looks like a serving you would pay $4 for. If it looks small, cut 10 and raise the price, rather than shrinking the portion later.
Here is what your time adds at three hourly rates:
At $50 a pan, a meatless lasagna leaves you $28.34 after ingredients ($17.92), the pan ($1.99) and the $1.75 card fee, which is about $31 an hour for 55 minutes of prep. Drop to $35 and the same pan pays about $15 an hour. That math is why $50 is a safe starting price for a 13x9: at $20 an hour the floor is about $40, and $50 leaves room above it.
Meat lasagna is outside the home food rules in Texas and Wyoming and outside California's cottage food list, so in those states you sell it from a licensed kitchen, or in California through a same-day home restaurant permit. Meatless lasagna is allowed from a home kitchen in Texas with registration and in Wyoming when you sell directly to the buyer. Rules change and vary by county, so verify your state's current rules before you sell.
The reason is the ingredients. The FDA Food Code, which most state health codes are built on, counts animal foods that are raw or heat-treated as foods that need time and temperature control for safety, apart from a few exceptions it lists. Ricotta, mozzarella, eggs and meat are all animal foods, so a baked lasagna has to be kept cold or hot. Our guide to time and temperature control foods under cottage food laws explains how states treat that category.
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| Route | Meat lasagna | Cheese or spinach lasagna | Key conditions |
|---|---|---|---|
| California cottage food | No | No | The state list covers only foods that do not need refrigeration; its baked goods category excludes cream, custard and meat fillings |
| California home restaurant permit (MEHKO) | Yes | Yes | You must live in the home; the operator passes a Certified Food Protection Manager exam and helpers get a food handler card; made and served the same day; up to 30 meals a day and 90 a week; $100,000 a year; no catering; no farmers markets or temporary events; your county must approve the program |
| Texas cottage food | No | Yes | Register with the state; complete a food handler course; keep it at 41 degrees F or below, or 135 degrees F or above if you deliver it hot; put the date it was made on the label; list the egg, milk and wheat in it as allergens; put your business name and your address or DSHS registration number on the label; the label must say it was made in a private residence; print the safe handling statement; no wholesale; $150,000 a year |
| Wyoming Food Freedom Act | No | Yes | Sold directly to the buyer, only in Wyoming; you must tell the buyer the food is not licensed, regulated or inspected; up to $250,000 and 250,000 products a year |
| Licensed commercial kitchen | Yes | Yes | A health department license for the kitchen and your business; ask your health department whether it covers catering and packaged frozen trays |
Checked October 1, 2026, on the California Department of Public Health's Approved Cottage Foods list (last reviewed April 2026), the Los Angeles County MEHKO FAQ, the Texas DSHS cottage food page and Wyoming Statutes 11-49-102 and 11-49-103.
A MEHKO, or microenterprise home kitchen operation, is a tiny licensed restaurant run from the home you live in. The Los Angeles County MEHKO FAQ says the food "must be made and served on the same day," caps you at 30 meals a day and 90 a week, and says leftovers "cannot be served the next day." The same FAQ says the operator "shall pass a Certified Food Protection Manager course and obtain a certificate," and anyone else handling food needs a food handler card. It also says a MEHKO "is not permitted to operate as a Catering Operation," and it defines a meal as what a typical person eats in one sitting, so ask your county whether a 12-serving pan counts as one meal or 12 against the 30-a-day cap. Los Angeles County approved its ordinance in May 2024; check whether your county has. Our plain guide to MEHKO laws covers the application.
The Texas DSHS cottage food page allows "any foods, except" a list that starts with "meat, meat products, poultry, or poultry products." A cheese or spinach lasagna is allowed, but you must register, complete an accredited food handler course, keep it at "41ºF or below for cold items and 135ºF or above for hot items," put the date it was made on the label, list the egg, milk and wheat in it as allergens, put your business name and your address or DSHS registration number on the label, and print: "SAFE HANDLING INSTRUCTIONS: To prevent illness from bacteria, keep this food refrigerated or frozen until the food is prepared for consumption." Every label must also say: "THIS PRODUCT WAS PRODUCED IN A PRIVATE RESIDENCE THAT IS NOT SUBJECT TO GOVERNMENTAL LICENSING OR INSPECTION." Online orders must be personally delivered by you, an employee or a household member, and the full label information has to be posted on your order page before the buyer pays. More in our Texas cottage food law guide.
The Wyoming Food Freedom Act lists dairy products and meat among potentially hazardous foods and says sales must "not involve the sale of meat products," with narrow exceptions, such as poultry you raise and slaughter yourself (up to 1,000 birds a year). A meatless lasagna sold directly to a buyer inside Wyoming fits, as long as you tell the buyer that it "is not certified, labeled, licensed, packaged, regulated or inspected"; a beef lasagna does not. The act also caps a producer at $250,000 in sales and 250,000 products a year. See our Wyoming cottage food law guide.
If you cook meat lasagna in a licensed kitchen and sell it straight to households, a federal rule (9 CFR 303.1(d)) treats that like a restaurant or retail store, so you do not need USDA meat inspection. Sold as a retail store, at least 75 percent of your meat product sales by dollar value must go to household consumers, and sales to anyone else must stay under a yearly dollar cap that USDA adjusts each year. Sold as a restaurant or caterer, the lasagna has to go as meals or entrees straight to individual customers. Either way, you use only federally or state inspected meat, and no single sale can go over a normal retail quantity. Selling meat lasagna wholesale to a coffee shop or grocery store can bring in USDA inspection, so ask your state agriculture department before you take a wholesale order.
The legal route changes your price more than any ingredient does. A home kitchen costs you nothing extra by the hour. A rented kitchen can add $11 to $45 a pan, which the next section works out.
Commercial kitchen rent adds $11 to $45 to each lasagna once you count the oven, depending on the hourly rate and how many pans you make in one booking. Three shared kitchens we checked on October 1, 2026 charge $17 to $45 an hour. If you book 4 hours and make 8 pans, rent at $25 an hour is $12.50 a pan; make only 4 and it doubles to $25.
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| Shared kitchen | Hourly rate | Rent per pan, 4 pans in 4 hours | Rent per pan, 8 pans in 4 hours | Other terms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cleveland Central Kitchen, Cleveland, OH | $25 (6 a.m. to 8 p.m.), $17 (8 p.m. to 6 a.m.) | $25 or $17 | $12.50 or $8.50 | Hourly membership; $5 an hour more for large equipment such as its convection ovens; $125 a quarter membership fee; $140 security deposit |
| Capital Kitchens, Austin, TX | $33 main kitchen, $29 prep only | $33 | $16.50 | 12-hour monthly minimum ($396 a month for equipment users) |
| Shared Kitchen Rentals, San Diego, CA | $45 peak, $40 non-peak | $45 | $22.50 | $210 monthly base rate on top, or monthly packages that include the base, such as 15 peak hours for $475 |
Rates from each kitchen's own rates page, checked October 1, 2026. The 4-hour booking and the pans per booking are our example, not the kitchens' terms; time one booking yourself before you rely on 8 pans. Cleveland's $25 rate leaves out its $5-an-hour charge for large equipment, which covers its convection ovens, so ask any kitchen what the oven costs per hour; at $30 an hour, 8 pans in 4 hours carry $15 of rent each.
This is the line that separates a $50 lasagna from a $70 one. A meat lasagna from a rented kitchen costs $25.18 in ingredients and pan, $18.33 in your time and $12.50 in rent at 8 pans a booking, which is $56.01 before the card fee. At 4 pans a booking the same pan costs $68.51, and once the $2.33 card fee comes out, a $70 price falls 84 cents short, which pays you about $19 an hour instead of $20. If your kitchen charges extra for the oven, as Cleveland does at $5 an hour, rent at 4 pans is $30 a pan and $70 falls about $6 short. Fill the booking with 8 pans, or charge about $80 in a week when you can only sell 4. Sell it at $50 and you lose money on every pan you make in a light week.
Ways to bring the rent per pan down:
Our guide to finding and renting a commissary kitchen covers what to ask a kitchen before you sign.
Add your ingredients, pan, time and any kitchen rent, round up to a price that leaves you at least $20 an hour, then check it against the delis in your area. Here is the full process for one 13x9 pan:
If your total lands above what local delis charge, look at the portion before the price. Twelve servings is the recipe's count, not a rule. Cutting the same pan into 10 bigger pieces at $5 a serving gives you the same $50 and lines up with Tony's 8 to 10 servings for a 10x13 pan.
You can charge the same price for meat and meatless lasagna made in the same kitchen, the way Tony's, Tredici and Italia Deli all do, or add the cost of the meat to the meat version, the way the price ladder above does. The sausage and beef are only $5.27 of the $23.19 pan, so a single price keeps your menu simple and still covers the meat version. Always price them apart when the route is different: a meatless pan from your Texas home kitchen at $50, and a meat pan from a rented kitchen at $70.
Price specialty versions from what they cost you:
Keep your menu to two or three versions at first. Every extra flavor is another sauce to make, another ingredient to stock and another way to run short on the day.
Price an 8x8 pan of 6 servings at $32 to $36, a single portion at about $7, and a party tray by the serving at $4.17 to $5.83. Smaller sizes cost you more per serving to package and sell, so their per-serving price should be higher than the 13x9.
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| Size | Servings | Ingredients | Suggested price | Per serving | Deli reference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single portion | 1 | $1.93 | $7 | $7.00 | Verdi's baked lasagna entree, $12.95 |
| 8x8 pan, meatless | 6 | $8.96 | $32 | $5.33 | Cavaretta's half tray for 6 to 8, $65 |
| 8x8 pan, meat, home permit kitchen | 6 | $11.60 | $36 | $6.00 | Tredici small for 6 to 9, $62 |
| 13x9 pan, meatless | 12 | $17.92 | $50 | $4.17 | Tony's small for 8 to 10, $45 |
| Two 13x9 pans for a party | 24 | $35.84 to $46.38 | $100 to $140 | $4.17 to $5.83 | LaCascia's full pan for 32, $140 |
Ingredient costs from the Taste of Home recipe priced on Walmart.com, October 1, 2026; deli prices from each deli's catering page the same day. From a rented kitchen, a meat 8x8 carries the same $12.50 rent as a 13x9, so charge about $47, or $7.83 a serving.
A few rules keep the sizes from hurting you:
Sell lasagna baked and chilled with reheating instructions, the way Tony's and Cavaretta's do, or unbaked and cold for the buyer to bake at home, and charge the same price either way, since both keep the food cold on the trip home. Tony's Italian Deli says all its trays "are precooked in aluminum pans and are picked up cold," and charges $2 to heat a small pan. Cavaretta's tells customers to reheat at 350 degrees for 2 hours, covered. If you bake and chill, the FDA Food Code says cooked food must cool from 135 degrees F to 70 degrees F within 2 hours and to 41 degrees F within 6 hours, and it lists shallow pans and loose covers as ways to get there, so cool pans loosely covered with space around them in the fridge, and check your state's rule.
Which one you can sell depends on your route:
Put the reheating steps on the lid. Cavaretta's line, 350 degrees for 2 hours covered, is a good model, and the FDA Food Code sets 165 degrees F as the temperature for reheating cooked food that will be held hot. A lid that says the oven temperature, the time and "heat until the center reaches 165 degrees F" saves you a dozen texts on the day. Time your own reheat on one chilled pan first, since your pan depth and oven will differ from a deli's.
Twenty meatless pans a month at $50 from a home kitchen leave you about $557 after ingredients, pans, card fees and a $10 Homegrown plan, or about $30 for each hour of prep. The same 20 pans made with meat in a rented kitchen at $70 leave about $590, or $32 an hour, but only because the price went up to carry the rent.
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| Scenario | Pans | Price | Revenue | Ingredients and pans | Card fees | Homegrown plan | Kitchen rent | Left for you | Prep hours | Per hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home kitchen, meatless | 8 | $50 | $400 | $159.28 | $14.00 | $10 | $0 | $216.72 | 7.3 | $29.55 |
| Home kitchen, meatless | 20 | $50 | $1,000 | $398.20 | $35.00 | $10 | $0 | $556.80 | 18.3 | $30.37 |
| Rented kitchen, meat | 20 | $70 | $1,400 | $503.60 | $46.60 | $10 | $250 | $589.80 | 18.3 | $32.17 |
| Rented kitchen, meat | 40 | $70 | $2,800 | $1,007.20 | $93.20 | $10 | $500 | $1,189.60 | 36.7 | $32.44 |
| Rented kitchen, meat, underpriced | 20 | $50 | $1,000 | $503.60 | $35.00 | $10 | $250 | $201.40 | 18.3 | $10.99 |
Ingredients and pan: $19.91 meatless, $25.18 meat (Walmart.com, October 1, 2026). Card fees at 2.9% plus $0.30 per order. Homegrown at $10 a month on annual billing. Rent at $12.50 a pan (8 pans per 4-hour booking at $25 an hour). Prep hours use the recipe's listed 55 minutes a pan; time your own first pan, since your hands-on time may run longer. In the rented rows that is more than the kitchen time the rent pays for (10 hours for 20 pans), because 8 pans only fit in 4 hours when you make the sauce for all 8 at once and the oven bakes them together, so the per-hour figure there is an estimate. Not included: shopping and cleanup time, utilities, insurance, permit or license fees, the kitchen's oven surcharge and membership fee (Cleveland: $5 an hour and $125 a quarter), and any pans you throw out, so treat "left for you" as a ceiling.
The last row is the one to remember. The same 20 meat pans at $50 instead of $70 drop your pay from about $32 an hour to about $11, because rent and meat do not shrink when your price does. If you pay for a kitchen, price for the kitchen.
On a $50 lasagna order, card processing at 2.9% plus $0.30 costs you $1.75, and the platform you take orders through decides whether anything more comes out of your pocket or your customer's. Here is the full fee stack on one $50 order and on a month of 30 orders.
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| Platform | Subscription | Trial | Platform fee | Card processing | Customer pays on a $50 order | You pay on a $50 order | You pay for 30 orders a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Homegrown | $10/mo billed annually, or $12.50/mo billed monthly | 7 days, no charge until day 8 | $0 (0% commission) | 2.9% + $0.30, paid by you | $50.00 | $1.75 | $62.50 including the plan ($65.00 on monthly billing) |
| Hotplate, default (fee passed to customer) | $0 | No plan to trial | 5% + $0.55, paid by the customer | 2.9% + $0.30, paid by you | $53.05 | $1.75 | $52.50 (your customers pay $91.50 in fees) |
| Hotplate, you cover the fee | $0 | No plan to trial | 5% + $0.55, paid by you | 2.9% + $0.30, paid by you | $50.00 | $4.80 | $144.00 |
| Square Free plan, online | $0 | No plan to trial | $0 | 3.3% + $0.30 | $50.00 | $1.95 | $58.50 |
| Square Free plan, card tapped in person | $0 | No plan to trial | $0 | 2.6% + $0.15 | $50.00 | $1.45 | $43.50 |
We checked findhomegrown.com/signup, hotplate.com/pricing and Square's fee help page on October 1, 2026. Hotplate's own post "What Hotplate does" says "we charge a fee to your customer" and "80% of Hotplate chefs keep the default as-is"; its pricing page says you can pay it or pass it on, "your choice." Card processing on both Homegrown and Hotplate is 2.9% + $0.30, paid by you.
On a $50 pan the differences look small, a dollar or three an order. They add up on the customer's side: under Hotplate's default, a regular who orders a $50 pan four times a month pays $12.20 in fees on top of your price. Pick the setup you would want as a buyer.
Lasagna is a made-to-order dish, so you need orders paid and counted before you rent a kitchen or buy two tubs of ricotta per pan. Homegrown is $10 per month on annual billing with no percentage fees beyond standard payment processing, and it gives you one link where customers pick a pan size, choose a pickup time and pay ahead.
The parts that fit a lasagna menu, all listed as included on Homegrown's signup page on October 1, 2026:
Compare that with the other ways lasagna vendors take orders. Hotplate has no monthly plan, but by default your customer pays 5% plus $0.55 on every order, which is $3.05 on a $50 pan, and you still pay the same 2.9% plus $0.30 card fee you would on Homegrown. Square's free plan charges 3.3% plus $0.30 online, $1.95 on a $50 pan, and you still have to build the ordering page yourself. Facebook posts and DMs have no platform fee, but Venmo takes 1.9% plus $0.10 on a business profile ($1.05 on a $50 pan), and you are matching payments to 15 message threads the night before a bake day.
Honest bounds: Homegrown does not make your lasagna legal to sell, so you still need the right permit or kitchen for your state. Customers create a Homegrown account to place their first order. There is no drops or countdown release feature, and no date for one. Your storefront is listed on Homegrown's marketplace, but plan on most orders coming from people you send to your own link. You pay the 2.9% plus $0.30 card fee; it is not passed to the customer.
If your next step is taking orders for a Sunday family-dinner pan, set up your Homegrown storefront with your 8x8 and 13x9 prices and a two-day lead time. It runs 7 days with no charge until day 8, so you can take your first lasagna pre-orders before your first subscription charge.
The most expensive lasagna mistake is pricing from the ingredients alone, which turns a $43.51 pan (counting your time) into a $25 sale. These are the mistakes that show up most when home cooks start selling pans:
If you have been selling at $25 or $30, raise it at your next menu change, not mid-week. Tell regulars the new price and why in one sentence, such as "I was not charging for my time, so pans are now $50."
When customers already ask you for lasagna every week, the next step is a simple order page. Start your Homegrown storefront and list your lasagna sizes with a lead time, so the orders and payments arrive in one place instead of your texts.
Charge about $50 for a 13x9 pan of cheese or spinach lasagna that serves 12, which is $4.17 a serving, or about $55 for a meat pan from a California home restaurant permit kitchen. If you pay for a commercial kitchen to make a meat lasagna, charge about $70 and make about 8 pans in each booking, since at 4 pans a booking $70 falls just short of covering your time at $20 an hour, even before any extra charge for the oven. Six Italian delis we checked on October 1, 2026 charge $45 to $94.99 for a small or half tray, so both prices sit inside what buyers already pay.
A classic 9x13 meat lasagna from the Taste of Home recipe costs $23.19 in ingredients at Walmart.com prices on October 1, 2026, or $1.93 a serving. A foil pan with a lid adds $1.99. Without the sausage and beef, the ingredients cost $17.92.
A 9x13 pan of lasagna makes about 12 servings, the count used by the Taste of Home Classic Lasagna recipe. Delis vary: Tony's Italian Deli says its 10x13 small tray serves 8 to 10. Cut fewer, bigger pieces if your buyers are big eaters, and price per serving to match.
It depends on your state and on whether the lasagna has meat. In Texas you can sell a meatless lasagna from home after registering with the state health department and completing a food handler course, but not one with meat. In California, any lasagna made at home, meat or meatless, needs a same-day home restaurant permit in a county that has approved them, because lasagna is not on the cottage food list. Wyoming allows meatless lasagna sold directly to a buyer in the state, as long as you tell the buyer it is not licensed or inspected. Verify your state's current rules before you sell.
A half pan or small tray of lasagna from an Italian deli costs $45 to $94.99 at the six delis we checked on October 1, 2026. Tony's Italian Deli in Chicago charges $45 for a pan that serves 8 to 10, and Italia Deli & Bakery in Agoura Hills, California charges $94.99. Full trays ran $80 to $179.99.
Most delis charge the same for meat and meatless lasagna, and you can too if both come from the same kitchen. The sausage and beef add only $5.27 to a 13x9 pan. Charge more for meat lasagna when it has to come from a rented kitchen and your cheese lasagna does not, since the rent adds $11 to $45 a pan.
More guides for pricing and selling family meals:
