Dog Food Monthly Cost Calculator

Two numbers drive the monthly bill: how much food your dog eats in a day, and what a pound of that food costs. The second one is printed on the bag. The first is where most cost estimates go wrong, because a flat “cups per pound of dog” rule undershoots badly at the small end and overshoots at the giant end.

So this calculator sizes the portion from calories instead, using the same method as the Dog Food Calculator so the two pages agree:

RER (Resting Energy Requirement) = 70 × (weight in kg)^0.75 Daily calories = RER × 1.6 for a neutered adult at normal activity Cups per day = Daily calories ÷ kcal per cup

A cup of dry kibble weighs roughly 120 g, so a 30 lb bag holds about 113 cups. That conversion is the step people skip, and skipping it is what turns a $50 month into a $13 one on paper.

Worked example. A 45 lb Labrador on premium kibble, $65 for a 30 lb bag:

• Daily calories: 70 × 20.4^0.75 × 1.6 = 1,076 kcal
• At 375 kcal per cup: 2.87 cups, about 0.76 lb of food
• The bag lasts 30 ÷ 0.76 = 39 days
• Monthly: 0.76 lb × 30 days × $2.17/lb = $49.32

Rough price tiers. These are US figures from 2026 and they move every year, so treat them as a sanity check on your own receipt rather than a quote.

Wet food is a different animal. At $1.50 to $3.50 a can, and two or three cans a day for a medium dog, almost nobody feeds it exclusively past about 25 lb. Fresh or raw subscription services land between $100 and $250 a month depending on size.

What this figure leaves out. Treats run $10 to $30 a month, and they should come out of the daily calorie total rather than sit on top of it. Supplements add $10 to $25. A prescription diet can double or triple the base cost. Puppies eat more per pound of body weight than adults do, and a genuinely working dog can put away twice what the formula says.