New Year’s Eve Party Food and Drink Calculator: Appetizers, Drinks and a Midnight Toast
Enter your guest count, how long the party runs, whether dinner is served and whether there is a midnight toast. You get appetizer pieces, desserts, drinks with an alcohol-free share, bottles for the toast, ice and plates. Every number is a planning estimate you can change.
Free · no signup · runs in your browser — nothing you type leaves your device.
Your party
Sample choices are filled in. Change anything and the plan updates.
Alcohol is for adults of legal drinking age only. The plan assumes guests who drink alternate with water, soda, juice or a mocktail, so at least half of all drinks come out alcohol-free, and there is always a share of guests planned as not drinking alcohol.
What to buy or make
How the numbers are worked out
All of these are our own planning estimates, not rules from any standard. Appetizers, per guest: with a sit-down dinner, 5 pieces in the first hour and 2 more for each extra hour. Without dinner, 6 pieces in the first hour and 4 for each extra hour. Desserts, per guest: 2 pieces with dinner and 3 without.
Drinks: guests times hours times your drinks per hour, which the tool will not let you set above 2. Guests who have alcohol are assumed to alternate, so alcohol servings are the total drinks times the share having alcohol times one half, and everything else is alcohol-free. A bottle of wine counts as 5 servings. The alcohol share is capped at 90 percent, and the number of toast drinkers is the guests times the share, rounded, but never more than the guest count minus one, so at least one guest is always planned as not drinking alcohol (5 guests at 90 percent is 4 drinkers and 1 glass of sparkling juice). The midnight toast is separate: one pour of about 4 ounces for each guest who is having alcohol, 6 pours from a 750 ml bottle (an estimate), rounded up to whole bottles, and a glass of sparkling juice or cider for everyone else. Ice is 1 pound per guest in 10 pound bags. Small plates are 2 per guest, plus 1 more per guest if dinner is served, with 10 percent spare, rounded up. Napkins are 2 per guest plus 1 per guest for each hour, with 10 percent spare, rounded up.
Worked example: 20 guests, 5 hours, no dinner, 1 drink per hour, half the guests having alcohol and a midnight toast. Appetizers are 6 + 4 × 4 = 22 pieces per guest, so 440. Desserts are 3 × 20 = 60. Drinks are 20 × 5 × 1 = 100, of which 100 × 0.5 × 0.5 = 25 are alcohol and 75 are alcohol-free. The toast is 10 pours of sparkling wine, which is 2 bottles at 6 pours each, and 10 glasses of sparkling juice, which is 2 bottles. For the whole evening, see New Year’s Eve party ideas at home and the New Year’s Eve party hub.
Questions
- How many appetizers do I need for a New Year’s Eve party?
- It depends on whether dinner is served and how long the party runs. This calculator uses our own planning estimates: with a sit-down dinner, about 5 appetizer pieces per guest in the first hour and 2 more for each extra hour. Without dinner, appetizers are the meal, so it plans 6 pieces in the first hour and 4 for each extra hour. They are starting points to adjust, not rules.
- How many bottles of sparkling wine do I need for a midnight toast?
- Plan one small pour per guest who is having alcohol. This tool estimates 6 pours from a 750 ml bottle, which is about 4 ounces each, and rounds up to a whole bottle. That is an estimate: pour bigger glasses and a bottle serves fewer people. Guests who are not drinking alcohol can raise a glass of sparkling juice or cider, which the tool counts separately.
- How many drinks should I plan per guest per hour?
- The tool defaults to 1 drink per guest per hour and will not go above 2. The share of guests who will have alcohol is your input, and the tool assumes those guests alternate: half of their drinks are alcohol and half are water, soda, juice or a mocktail. That keeps alcohol to at most 1 serving per drinking guest per hour, plus one small pour for the midnight toast, and at least half of all drinks alcohol-free.
- What counts as a serving of alcohol?
- This tool counts a 5 fluid ounce glass of wine as one serving and a 750 ml bottle of wine as 5 servings. Beer and cocktails are counted in single drinks the same way. The toast pour is smaller, about 4 ounces. If you pour larger glasses, plan for fewer servings per bottle.
- Does an alcohol-free option matter?
- Yes. Some guests are driving, pregnant, or simply not drinking, and guests under the legal drinking age should not be served alcohol. The calculator always plans an alcohol-free share, even if you set the alcohol share to 100 percent. Put the alcohol-free drinks on the same table as everything else and label them, so choosing one is easy.
- Does anything I type leave my device?
- What you type stays in your browser. The math runs on this page.
Printable New Year’s Eve party suites
Ready-to-print New Year’s Eve party suites
Invitation, countdown bag tags timed for your start time, resolution and predictions cards, photo booth props, signs and food labels, editable on a laptop (it also opens on a phone or tablet). Three kits per theme, with games and a planner in the bigger ones. Digital download, nothing ships.
Midnight Sparkle
Black and gold for a glamorous countdown.
- Printable Suite $14.99 View on Etsy
- Host Kit $22.99 View on Etsy
- Everything Kit $34.99 View on Etsy
Pop the Bubbly
Blush and champagne tones for a New Year’s Eve built around the midnight toast.
- Printable Suite $14.99 View on Etsy
- Host Kit $22.99 View on Etsy
- Everything Kit $34.99 View on Etsy
Noon Year Party
A kids’ countdown at noon, so little ones can ring in the new year wide awake. The bag tags count down to 12 PM.
- Printable Suite $14.99 View on Etsy
- Host Kit $22.99 View on Etsy
- Everything Kit $34.99 View on Etsy
Kit contents, side by side: compare all three kits.