Calculator
Pizza party: guests, dough, and a shopping list
Guests times slices per person, divided by slices per pizza, rounds up to whole pizzas. This page makes one dough ball per pizza. Slice counts start as estimates you can edit. They are not a published rule.
Quick answer. 8 guests at 2 slices each, 8 slices per pizza, is 2 pizzas and 2 dough balls. Those slice counts are editable estimates. Flour for 250 g balls on this site’s Neapolitan starting formula is 309 g. Cheese for a 12-inch pizza, scaled from the 10-inch Serious Eats base, is 5.76 oz for the batch.
Shop
2 pizzas · 2 dough balls
| Flour | 309 g |
|---|---|
| Water | 182 g |
| Salt | 9 g |
| Instant yeast | 0.25 g |
| Cheese | 5.76 oz (163 g) |
| Sauce | 5.76 Tbsp |
Flour, water, salt, and yeast use this site’s Neapolitan starting formula at 250 g per ball. Cheese and sauce scale from the 10-inch Serious Eats base to 1.44× that area.
Open this dough in the pizza calculator
Open the overnight bake planner. That preset is not built from the guest count.
What each line is
Flour, water, salt, and yeast come from this site’s Neapolitan starting formula: 59% water, 2.9% salt, 0% oil, 0% sugar, and 0.08% instant yeast. A traditional center: water in the high 50s, salt near 3% of the flour, no oil and no sugar. Many contemporary Neapolitan doughs are wetter. The yeast figure is a small starting point, not a fermentation schedule.
Cheese and sauce start from Serious Eats: 2 ounces of cheese and 2 tablespoons of sauce on a 10-inch pizza, scaled by the square of the diameter you type. A sauce weight in grams is your own estimate for that 10-inch base. Zero leaves the gram line off.
The planner link opens the overnight preset only. It does not rebuild the steps from the guest count. The pizza link opens the same Neapolitan starting formula with this ball count and ball weight.
Questions
- Where do the slices per person come from?
- They don’t. Two slices per person and eight slices per pizza are editable estimates so the form has a starting count. They are not a survey and not a caterer’s rule. Change both.
- Why does the pizza count round up?
- Guests times slices per person is divided by slices per pizza, then rounded up to a whole pizza. A remainder still needs a pizza. Zero guests is zero pizzas.
- Why is there one dough ball per pizza?
- That is this page’s rule: one ball makes one pizza. It is not a separate published count. The ball weight starts at 250 g, this site’s Neapolitan calculator default, and you can edit it.
- Where does the flour on the shopping list come from?
- This site’s Neapolitan starting formula, at the ball count and ball weight in the form: 59% water, 2.9% salt, no oil, no sugar, and 0.08% instant yeast. It is a starting point, not a caterer’s specification.
- Where do the cheese and sauce come from?
- They scale from Serious Eats’ 2 ounces of cheese and 2 tablespoons of sauce on a 10-inch pizza, by the area of the diameter you type. Sauce grams appear only after you type a weight. Zero means that gram weight was not entered.
- What does the bake planner link open?
- The overnight pizza preset: a cold bulk and a room-temperature proof. It is not a schedule built from your guest count. Change the steps on the planner after it opens.
Last reviewed 1 November 2026.
Sources
Slice counts are editable estimates. Dough weights use this site’s Neapolitan preset. Cheese and sauce tablespoons use the Serious Eats hacker-free recipe. A sauce weight in grams is an estimate you type.