Cat Food Cost Calculator

Enter your cat's weight and life stage, then find the food you feed right now below to see real calorie needs, wet-vs-dry serving size, and — for every food we've price-matched so far — real cost per day and per month. 614 of 1242 cat foods are price-matched so far, and growing.

Your catupdates every number below

10 lb

Estimated daily energy need: 261 kcal/day for your 10-lb adult cat

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Find your food, see what it costs you

Search the food you feed right now — 1242 cat foods across wet, dry, fresh and freeze-dried, 34 brands. Every row shows dry-matter protein and estimated carbs no matter what; cost per day/month appears once a food is price-matched to a current retail listing (614 are so far).

FoodFormServing/day$/day$/month

Showing all 1242 cat foods.

Every row links to that food's Verified Label — as an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases on buy links there. It never changes this ranking: priced foods are sorted cheapest-per-1,000-kcal first; everything else is sorted by dry-matter protein until it's price-matched. The quality chip (feeding-trial validated / named protein first / unnamed by-product) comes straight off the label.

Amazon prices shown as of 2026-07-12 – 2026-07-13. Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.

Quick comparison

Where the corpus stands today

Cheapest, median, and priciest per 1,000 kcal among foods we've price-matched, for your cat.

Cheapest verified

Friskies Seafood SensationsUnnamed by-product

$0.12/day

≈ $3.70/month

See this food →

Corpus median

Hill's Science Diet Adult Urinary Hairball Control Savory Chicken Entrée cat food

$4.42/day

≈ $132.51/month

See this food →

Priciest verified

Canidae PURE Wet Cat Food: Salmon and Whitefish in Broth

$10.42/day

≈ $312.56/month

See this food →

Other forms

22 fresh / freeze-dried / air-dried foods catalogued

Composition only

Most of these don't carry a cup/can serving figure yet — shown by kcal/kg instead.

See what we've verified →

The method

How the math works

Standard veterinary nutrition math, not something we invented — full derivation and caveats are on the methodology page.

Step 1 — daily energy need. We convert your cat's weight to resting energy requirement (RER), then multiply by a life-stage factor to get daily energy requirement (DER): kittens run roughly 2.5× RER while growing, adult cats about 1.2×, senior cats about 1.1×. Those factors are notably lower than a dog's at every comparable stage (adult dogs run about 1.6×) — cats are, as a population, less metabolically active pound-for-pound. We use one factor per stage; we don't yet split adult cats by intact/neutered or indoor/active status the way some vet guidance does, so treat this as a population estimate, not a prescription.

Step 2 — serving size. Each food's own kcal-per-cup (dry) or kcal-per-can (wet) figure, straight off the label math, divides into your cat's daily kcal need to get cups or cans per day. Fresh, freeze-dried, and air-dried foods mostly don't carry a per-serving figure yet in our data, so those rows show kcal/kg instead of a cup or can count — an honest gap, not a guess.

Step 3 — cost per day. Once a food is price-matched, we take its cost per 1,000 kcal (computed from label calorie density and a current retail price — never bag or can price alone) and multiply by your cat's daily kcal need ÷ 1,000. Cost per month is that figure × 30. Until a food is price-matched, this page says "verifying price" rather than showing a number we can't back.

Daily energy requirement (DER) RER = 70 × (weight in kg)^0.75
DER = RER × stage factor Stage factors: kitten 2.5 · adult 1.2 · senior 1.1 Cost per day (once price-matched) cost/day = (DER ÷ 1,000) × cost per 1,000 kcal Corpus: 1242 cat foods verified total — 877 wet, 343 dry, 22 fresh/freeze-dried/air-dried, 34 brands, verified 2026-07-12. Not veterinary advice — talk to your vet about your cat's actual energy needs, especially for kittens, seniors, or a cat managing a medical condition.

Common questions

Cat food cost, honestly answered

How much should I feed my cat?

We convert your cat's weight to a resting energy requirement (RER = 70 × weight in kg^0.75), then multiply by a life-stage factor to get daily energy requirement: about 2.5× RER for a growing kitten, 1.2× for an adult cat, 1.1× for a senior. Divide that daily kcal number by the specific food's kcal-per-cup (dry) or kcal-per-can (wet) figure to get cups or cans per day — that's exactly what the calculator above does the moment you change your cat's weight or stage.

Is wet or dry cat food cheaper?

It depends on the specific foods, not the format — bag price or can price alone can't tell you, because wet and dry differ enormously in calorie density per unit. The only fair comparison is cost per 1,000 kcal, which we're actively price-matching across the catalog now (a separate, species-guarded pass from our dog pricing pipeline). Until a given food is priced, this page shows its verified composition instead of guessing at a cost — see the full cat food database to compare wet and dry side by side today.

Why do cats need fewer calories than dogs relative to their weight?

The resting-energy formula (RER) is species-neutral, but the life-stage multiplier on top of it is lower for cats at every stage — an adult cat runs about 1.2× RER versus roughly 1.6× for an adult dog — and cat food itself tends to run less calorie-dense per pound than dog food. Both effects push cats toward eating measurably less per pound of body weight than a dog the same size would. This is a population-level estimate; always confirm your cat's actual needs with your vet.

What if my cat's food doesn't show a cost yet?

Cat food pricing is being verified in a separate pass right now, deliberately kept apart from our dog pricing pipeline so a cat SKU can never accidentally pick up a dog listing's price. Until that finishes for a given SKU, its row on this page reads "verifying price" instead of a number — its dry-matter protein, estimated carbs, and serving size are fully verified today regardless. Meanwhile, see our low-carb and weight-management rubrics for foods that qualify on composition alone, or browse the full cat food database.