How much does homemade dog food really cost per day?

At the start, we were paying a low three-figure sum a month for special food from the vet – with no effect. Cooking ourselves is considerably cheaper today and visibly does Nami more good.

For a 15 kg dog, home-cooked dog food costs roughly €4 to €5 a day if you use supermarket meat – that's about €120 to €150 a month. Good dry food comes to around €2 to €3 a day. So cooking yourself is usually about one and a half to two times as expensive, plus 1.5 to 2 hours in the kitchen each week.

The question isn't whether it's more expensive than a big sack of dry food – it is. The question is: how much more expensive, really? Here's the honest calculation.

We'll take a neutered crossbreed, 15 kilos, fully grown, normally active. Their energy requirement is around 855 kcal a day (resting requirement 70 × 15^0.75, times 1.6). Home-cooked at around 130 kcal per 100 g, that's about 660 g of finished food, split into two meals. For your own dog, the fresh food calculator works it out.

The daily ration at typical supermarket prices

An example calculation with rough price ranges (autumn 2026) – regional prices and special offers vary considerably:

That comes to roughly €115 to €150 a month. With lean beef instead of poultry, it gets a little more expensive; with cheaper cuts such as chicken thighs (boneless) or heart, it's considerably cheaper – but then keep an eye on the higher fat content.

Organic version

Organic poultry and organic beef often cost two to three times the conventional price. This can roughly double the daily cost. That's a serious sum – but there are owners for whom exactly this matters, and that's absolutely legitimate.

At 360 kcal per 100 g, a 15 kg dog needs around 240 g of dry food a day. With a good brand at about €8 to €12 per kilo, that's around €1.90 to €2.90 a day, or about €60 to €90 a month.

So home-cooked food is roughly one and a half to two times as expensive as good dry food. You'll find a comparison of the different ways of feeding that goes beyond price in Dry, wet or fresh food.

Realistically, you'll need about 90 to 120 minutes for a week's ration: shopping, chopping, cooking, portioning, freezing. If you value that time at €15 an hour, that's a good €20 to €30 a week.

But people who cook for their dog rarely do it purely for efficiency. Many in our community say they've come to value that hour on a Sunday – podcast on, chopping board out, the dog lying in the kitchen watching.

If you batch-cook once a week instead of every evening, you save time, energy and money. You turn the hob on once, use large pans, portion everything into daily rations and freeze them. How long it keeps and how to thaw it properly is covered in our guide to storing dog food properly.

Three tips that really save money:

• Ask the butcher what's good value. Heart, tripe or lung are often bargains and well suited to dogs.
• Seasonal vegetables: courgettes in summer, pumpkin in autumn, root vegetables in winter.
• Bulk packs: a 5 kg sack of rice, a bigger bottle of salmon oil, mineral supplement in the large tub.

Please don't skimp on the oil – rancid oil has no place in the ration. And above all, don't skimp on calcium and minerals: meat, vegetables and rice alone don't cover the requirement. In one study, 95% of 200 published dog recipes lacked at least one essential nutrient in sufficient amounts. The German Federal Chamber of Veterinarians also stresses that putting together a balanced ration yourself requires specialist knowledge. How to plan the supplements is shown in our beginner's guide to home cooking.

That's a personal decision. If transparency matters to you, if you're avoiding allergies or if you know your dog and their sensitive stomach well – then it can be worth it. If you have an uncomplicated dog, little time and a tight budget – good dry food is not a bad choice. Both can make for a good dog's life.

The DoggoMeal app works out the daily amount, nutrient ratios and costs for your dog – for home-cooked food, raw feeding (BARF) and mixed forms. Get the app.