Free restaurant labor cost tracker (with formulas)
Labor is one of the two biggest line items in a restaurant, and most owners only find out they overspent after payroll runs. This tracker does the math for you: type in wages and hours, enter your weekly sales, and it shows your labor cost percentage instantly — the single number that tells you whether your schedule is profitable.
Download free templateExcel (.xlsx) · live formulas · opens in Excel & Google Sheets · No signup required
What’s inside
A per-employee table with wage, hours, and an auto-calculating labor-cost column
A summary that totals labor cost and scheduled hours with live formulas
A labor-cost-percentage cell that divides total labor by the weekly sales you enter
A benchmark note (most full-service restaurants target ~25–35% of sales) so you know if you’re on track
How to use this template
Download and open the tracker
Open the .xlsx in Excel or import it into Google Sheets. The formulas come with it — nothing to set up.
Enter wages and hours
For each employee, type their hourly wage and the hours they worked (or are scheduled for). The labor-cost column fills in automatically.
Enter your weekly sales
Put your projected or actual weekly sales in the “Weekly sales” cell in the summary block.
Read your labor cost %
The “Labor cost % of sales” cell updates instantly. Compare it to the ~25–35% benchmark to see if your schedule is over or under budget.
Fix it before payroll
If the percentage is too high, trim hours or shift coverage before you publish the schedule — or build the schedule in EpicShifts, which tracks labor cost against sales as you go.
When to use it
Use this when you want to control labor cost proactively instead of discovering it after the fact. It’s built for restaurants and bars where wages, tips, and hours vary by role, but any hourly business can use it. A spreadsheet is great for a snapshot; what it can’t do is update as the schedule changes or pull your real sales automatically — which is exactly where scheduling software that watches labor-vs-sales in real time earns its keep.
Skip the spreadsheet
Already filled it in? Upload the file to EpicShifts and we’ll import it into a live schedule — your team sees their shifts on mobile, swaps and picks up open shifts, and gets reminders automatically.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate restaurant labor cost percentage?
Labor cost percentage is total labor cost divided by total sales for the same period, multiplied by 100. For example, $3,000 in labor on $10,000 in sales is 30%. This template does that calculation automatically once you enter wages, hours, and sales.
What is a good labor cost percentage for a restaurant?
Most full-service restaurants aim for labor at roughly 25–35% of sales, though it varies by concept — quick-service often runs lower, fine dining higher. The template includes this benchmark so you can see where you land.
Do the formulas work in Google Sheets?
Yes. The labor-cost and percentage formulas are standard spreadsheet formulas that work in both Excel and Google Sheets. Import the .xlsx via File → Import → Upload and the calculations keep working.
Dustin Hanke, Founder, EpicShifts — Dustin builds EpicShifts and writes about scheduling, labor cost, and shift-work operations for restaurants and other hourly teams.
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