By the Sevetu team
On this page
Short answer
A home cook in India costs ₹3,000 to ₹8,000 a month part-time, for one meal or one fixed slot a day; ₹8,000 to ₹18,000 full-time, for two or three meals and kitchen upkeep; and ₹15,000 to ₹28,000 live-in, with a room and food on top. These are Sevetu's published market ranges1. Meals, people, cuisine and timing decide where you land inside a band.
What changes a cook's price?
A cook isn't paid by the hour the way a delivery job is. She's paid for a slot in her day, and how much cooking fits in it. Before you name a number, settle these six.
Meals a day
One meal is one slot. Breakfast, tiffin and dinner is most of a day, and it is priced like it.
How many people
Rotis for two and rotis for seven are different jobs. Say the number, and whether guests are frequent.
Cuisine
One home cuisine is the base. Two cuisines, Jain food, or separate meals for an elder or a child take longer.
Extras
Shopping for vegetables, chopping for the next day, washing the cooking vessels, wiping the kitchen. Each one is time.
Timing
A 6 am slot is the slot every house in your building wants. Early slots cost more because she can't fit another house there.
Live-in
Room, food and a longer day, with less of a line between work and rest. It is the top band for a reason.
How much for two meals, or one meal a day?
Most part-time cooks work in several houses and sell slots. One meal a day sits in the lower half of the part-time band; two meals in one visit usually sits higher, because the slot is longer.
We don't publish a single per-meal price, because no source we can defend has one, and a number without its hours and family size misleads more than it helps. Other platforms publish their own figures: one, for example, puts three meals for a family of four in Delhi NCR at ₹10,000 to ₹12,000 a month2. Use figures like that as a sense check, not a rule.
The quickest honest way to price a slot: ask two or three cooks in your area what they charge for the same meals, the same family size, at the same time. The answers will cluster. Pay inside the cluster.
Hiring a cook without tasting her food is like choosing a driver by looking at his car. A paid trial day settles more than any rate card. The 20 interview questions that tell you whether the hire will last →
Is there a minimum wage for a cook?
In some states, yes. Karnataka treats domestic work as a scheduled employment and notifies a minimum wage for it. For Zone 1, the notified areas of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, the rates from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027 are:3
Two things to know. It is a floor, not what families actually pay, and market rates sit below it in places. And it sets monthly and daily rates only, with no hourly rate and no way to pro-rate, so a part-time cook's pay can't be measured against it3. If you hire a cook full-time in Bengaluru, the monthly figure is the line not to go under. Other states set their own rates, or none.
Why do salary sites say a cook earns ₹3 lakh a year?
Because they aren't measuring home cooks. One widely seen salary page puts the median cook salary in India at ₹3,20,000 a year and Bengaluru at ₹4,50,000, as an annual CTC estimate from its own model, and labels cook a "hospitality role"4. That's a restaurant or hotel job with a payslip.
Our take: most salary pages online are wrong for home work. A home cook is paid by meals, people and hours, monthly, usually by UPI or cash. If a number is quoted per year as CTC, it wasn't built for your kitchen.
What does a live-in cook cost, really?
On the published range, ₹15,000 to ₹28,000 a month, with a room and meals on top1. What families forget to price:
- The room. A separate space with a door, a fan and a place to keep her things.
- Food. The same food the family eats, not leftovers.
- Hours. Live-in doesn't mean on call for sixteen hours. Agree a start, an end and a break.
- Weekly off. A full day, written down, not "whenever she asks."
Live-in isn't automatically cheaper than full-time plus a part-time evening cook. Do both sums before you decide.
Put the number in writing
Once you've agreed the salary, write it down with the pay date, hours, weekly off, leave, notice and when the yearly raise happens. On Sevetu, the agreement is a plain record both of you keep.
Pay by UPI with a note if she's happy with it. A steady record of income helps her with rent, loans and proof of work later. If she prefers cash, that's her call.
What to put in a work agreement, clause by clause →
Hire a cook on Sevetu
Post the job with the meals, people, cuisine, time slot and salary. Cooks near you apply, many with a Verified badge from an identity check. You chat in the app without sharing your number, then agree the terms in writing. Posting and hiring are free, and no one takes a cut of her salary5.
Read next: home cook vs tiffin service, the cost · find a cook in Bangalore · best apps to hire a cook · which cook job pays best
Questions people ask
On Sevetu's published market ranges, ₹3,000 to ₹8,000 a month for a part-time cook, ₹8,000 to ₹18,000 for a full-time cook and ₹15,000 to ₹28,000 for a live-in cook. Meals per day, family size, cuisine and the time slot decide where you land.
Two meals in one visit usually sits in the upper half of the part-time range, or the lower end of full-time if both meals are cooked fresh at different times. Ask two or three cooks in your area what they charge for the same meals and family size, and pay inside that cluster.
For 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027, Karnataka's notified minimum wage for cooking and kitchen work in Zone 1 (BBMP areas) is ₹20,548.35 a month or ₹790.32 a day. There is no notified hourly rate, so part-time arrangements can't be measured against it.
₹15,000 to ₹28,000 a month on Sevetu's published range, plus a room and meals. Agree fixed hours, a break and a full weekly off in writing.
There's no rule. Agree it when you hire and write the month it happens into the agreement, so nobody has to bring it up under pressure. How much to raise it, worked out →
Sources
- Sevetu, Hire a cook, cost section, read 12 November 2026: part-time cook "₹3,000 to ₹8,000 / month", full-time cook "₹8,000 to ₹18,000 / month", live-in cook "₹15,000 to ₹28,000 / month". sevetu.com/hire-a-cook/
- Helpers Near Me, How to find a good & reliable home Cook in Delhi NCR in 2026?, read 12 November 2026: "The average monthly cost of hiring a Cook in Delhi NCR in 2026 varies between ₹10,000 to ₹12,000" for "cooking 3 meals for an average family of 4 members". helpersnearme.com
- Government of Karnataka, Office of the Labour Commissioner, minimum wage rate sheet for 2026-27, Notification No. KAE 68 LWA 2022, Sl. No. 27, Zone 1: cooking and kitchen work ₹20,548.35 a month and ₹790.32 a day; housekeeping, cleaning and looking after children ₹18,645.02 and ₹717.12; housekeeping and cleaning ₹18,298.96 and ₹703.81. Per-month and per-day rates only. karmikaspandana.karnataka.gov.in (PDF)
- Hyring, Cook salary in India, read 12 November 2026: median "₹3,20,000", an "annual INR CTC estimate"; Bengaluru "₹4,50,000"; cook labelled "Hospitality role, Hyring India Salary Model". hyring.com
- Sevetu, Pricing, read 10 November 2026: posting a job, reviewing applicants, chatting and hiring are free for households; no placement fee, platform fee or subscription; Sevetu takes no commission and workers keep 100% of the agreed pay. sevetu.com/pricing/
Add Sevetu as a preferred source on Google → Our guides then show up more often in your Top Stories and AI answers.
Written by the Sevetu teamSevetu is a hiring marketplace for household work in India, operated by Fiel Private Limited. These guides come from the questions families and workers ask us. Nothing here is sponsored, and where a number has no defensible source we say so instead of inventing one. About Sevetu
