Menu Pricing Calculator

It depends on your restaurant concept:

Fast casual / QSR: 25-28% — lower check averages demand tighter food cost.
Full-service casual: 28-32% — the industry sweet spot.
Fine dining: 30-35% — higher check averages and beverage sales offset the higher food cost.

The key is keeping your prime cost (food + labor) under 60-65% of revenue. If your labor runs high, you need tighter food cost, and vice versa. Use our food cost percentage calculator to check where each dish stands, then blend across the full menu. For a deeper breakdown, see our guide on how to calculate food cost.

Divide the cost per serving by your target food cost percentage as a decimal. The formula: Menu Price = Cost per Serving ÷ Target Food Cost %.

Example: a dish costs $4.50 to plate and you target 30% food cost. $4.50 ÷ 0.30 = $15.00 menu price. At that price, $4.50 goes to ingredients and $10.50 covers labor, overhead, and profit.

Not sure about your cost per serving? Use our cost per serving calculator or recipe cost calculator to get an accurate number before pricing.

No — and this is one of the most important concepts in menu engineering. Different items should carry different margins. A pasta dish at 22% food cost subsidizes a ribeye steak at 38%. A side salad at 15% brings the blend down further.

What matters is your blended food cost across the entire menu, weighted by sales mix. If 40% of your sales are high-margin pastas and only 10% are steaks, your blended number stays healthy even with expensive proteins on the menu.

Review prices quarterly at minimum, or whenever ingredient costs shift by more than 5-10%. Many restaurants do small, frequent increases ($0.50-$1.00) rather than large annual jumps — gradual changes are less noticeable to customers.

Seasonal menu changes are a natural opportunity to adjust pricing without drawing attention. When you do raise prices, start with your best sellers — customers accept price increases more easily on dishes they already love. Track your food cost percentage monthly so you catch margin erosion early. If you manage a full menu, menu costing software shows which dishes changed after a price update.

If the math says $22 but your market tops out at $18, you have several options:

• Reduce portion size — a 6 oz protein instead of 8 oz cuts cost by 25%
• Substitute cheaper ingredients — chicken thigh instead of breast, domestic cheese instead of imported
• Simplify the plate — fewer components means lower cost and faster execution
• Accept lower margin on that dish and make it up on high-margin items like beverages, appetizers, and desserts

The worst option is absorbing the loss silently. If a dish can't hit at least 35-40% food cost, it's dragging your menu down. Use the food cost calculator to model different ingredient swaps.

Menu price is the number printed on your menu — what the customer sees. Selling price is the effective revenue per plate after discounts, comps, promotions, and delivery platform fees. They're often different.

If you offer a 20% lunch special on a $15 dish, your effective selling price is $12.00, and your food cost jumps from 30% to 37.5% on the same plate. Third-party delivery fees (15-30% commission) have the same effect. Always calculate your selling price after accounting for these deductions to see your true margin.

Menu engineering classifies every dish on two axes: popularity (sales volume) and profitability (gross profit per plate). The four categories:

• Stars — high profit, high popularity. Promote these prominently.
• Plowhorses — low profit, high popularity. Raise prices slightly or reduce portion cost.
• Puzzles — high profit, low popularity. Reposition on the menu, rename, or have servers recommend them.
• Dogs — low profit, low popularity. Remove or rework completely.

Run this analysis quarterly. Even small shifts — moving a Star to a high-visibility menu position or bumping a Plowhorse by $1 — compound into thousands in annual profit. Read our full guide on menu engineering for step-by-step instructions.

It depends on your concept. Prices ending in .95 or .99 feel cheaper — $14.95 reads as meaningfully less than $15.00, even though the difference is 5 cents. This works well for casual dining, fast casual, and QSR.

Fine dining is the exception: round numbers ($18, $32, $45) signal premium quality. Many upscale restaurants also drop the dollar sign entirely, which reduces the psychological "pain of paying." Another tactic: don't list prices in a column on the right — it invites price comparison. Scatter prices after the description so guests focus on the food, not the cost.