Written by The Pragmatic CFO. 15+ years running restaurant P&Ls.
This article is part of The Menu and Pricing Series.
Every price increase has two right answers. The floor keeps your profit per plate the same. The target keeps your food cost percentage the same. Price somewhere between them. The calculator below gives you both for any item.
Prefer to watch? Here’s the video version, with the worked example.
The two numbers that bracket every price increase
Take a $16 burger with a $4.80 plate cost. That’s a 30% food cost. Beef goes up 20%, and beef was $2.40 of the plate. The plate is now $5.28.
- Floor: $16.48. Add the 48 cents of new cost. Each burger still earns $11.20.
- Target: $17.60. $5.28 divided by 0.30. Food cost stays at 30%.
The floor protects dollars. The target protects your percentage. Charge only the floor and food cost creeps to 32%. Each burger earns the same, but the P&L looks worse every month, and the next cost spike starts from a weaker spot.
Menu price increase calculator
Enter one item. Use the plate cost from your recipe card, not a guess. If you don’t have recipe cards, start with the food cost math.
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How many guests can you lose before the increase hurts?
A price increase pays as long as the extra margin on the guests who stay beats the margin you lose on the ones who leave.
Back to the burger. At $16 with the new $5.28 plate, each one earns $10.72. At $17.60, each earns $12.32. At 400 a week, $16 earns $4,288. At $17.60 you need only 348 burgers to earn the same. You can sell 52 fewer a week, 13%, before the increase costs you money.
That’s your cushion. You won’t know how much of it you used until you watch, so track the weekly count for four weeks after the change.
Where to take the increase
- Price the items whose costs moved. A flat 5% on everything overprices the stable items and underprices the ones hurting you.
- Go lighter on your best sellers. Guests know what they usually pay for those. Take more on sides, add-ons and drinks.
- Use the menu engineering grid. Stars can carry a little more. Dogs need a fix or a cut, not a new price.
How often to raise prices
Smaller and more often beats one big jump. Review plate costs every quarter and move the items that crossed your target by more than a point. Fifty cents on six items draws less attention than $2 on one signature dish.
For the full pricing method, see how to price your menu. For what a healthy food cost looks like in your concept, see food cost by concept.
What to watch after the change
- Item counts: weekly, for the items you moved, against the same weeks last year.
- Covers and check average by daypart: the two levers tell you which side moved.
- Food cost at month end: if it didn’t come down, the increase was too small or waste ate it.
Know every plate cost before you set the price.
The Toolkit’s Food Cost Calculator includes a recipe costing sheet, so the floor price in this calculator comes from real plate costs, not guesses.
Get the Toolkit, $67FAQ
How much should I raise menu prices?
Enough to hold your food cost percentage: new plate cost divided by your target food cost. At the least, add the full increase in plate cost so profit per plate doesn’t drop.
Should I raise every price by the same percentage?
No. Raise the items whose costs went up. A flat increase overprices items that didn’t change.
How many customers will I lose?
It depends on the item. The math gives you the cushion. In the burger example, a 10% increase can lose 13% of volume before gross profit drops.
Should I round to the nearest dollar?
Round to a price ending your menu already uses. Rounding a $16.48 floor up to $16.95 is fine. Rounding it down to $16 gives the increase back.