What Kind of Chef Makes The Most Money? (2024)

First let’s just get this out of the way. A Private Chef and a Personal Chef are two totally different things.

Sort of.

They both work in the client’s home.

They both cook.

That’s where the similarities end.

What is a Private Chef?

• Private Chefs are employees and are salaried.
• They are employed full-time and paid biweekly or on whatever regular schedule they set up with their employer.
• If you lose your one client you’re unemployed and looking for work.

Imagine leaving for work at 6am and fighting traffic. Getting to your client’s house. Seeing that they’ve eaten everything in the fridge. Managing to pull breakfast together.

Going to the store to restock groceries and then sitting around waiting to make lunch. Making lunch and having the client decide they want something different. Going back to the store. Making lunch again.

Wiping down the counters for the third time waiting for someone to need a snack.

Serving appetizers at co*cktail hour and trying to keep your client from getting hammered and ruining dinner.

Your client deciding they want dinner two hours later so your salmon filets that are just finishing in the oven will have to be repurposed for something else.

Finally finishing up at 10pm and heading home.

Getting to their house the next morning and having them tell you they’re spending winter in the South of France so won’t need you any longer.

That, my friend, is a Private Chef.

What is a Personal Chef?

How does this sound instead?

Dropping the kids off at school and heading to the grocery store first thing in the morning when it’s empty.

Buying the groceries for exactly what you’re client wants to eat. Rolling up to their house and unloading in the kitchen.

Cooking for about four hours. Packaging and labeling the food and putting it in the fridge. Cleaning the kitchen. Getting a check.

Maybe grabbing a snack or latte on your way to pick the kids up from school. Going home. Or to practice/game/rehearsal etc.

Having dinner with your family. Tucking your kids into bed.

• Personal Chefs are more like contractors. We are paid per job.
• So if I’m cooking a week’s worth of dinners for a regular weekly client, whether it takes me four hours or six hours, they are paying for the service they receive, not specifically my time. (Although I do take my time into consideration when I determine my pricing.)
• And multiple clients mean less risk to you. If one leaves you are still working for your other clients.

This is important to consider is so that we can compare apples to apples.

Private Chefs are salaried. Apples

Personal Chefs are by the job which is more like hourly. Oranges