How much does a digital menu cost?
In 2026, a digital menu costs a restaurant anywhere from nothing to about $300 a month. Free QR tools that link to a PDF cost $0 but do the least; self-serve QR menu builders typically run $20–$70 a month per location; done-for-you video menu services, where someone else films and builds it, generally run $100–$300 a month. The real cost difference isn't the software — it's whether you or someone else does the work, and whether the menu can actually show your food.
Free: a QR code pointing at a PDF
Any free QR generator plus a PDF on your website costs nothing and is what most restaurants are doing. It also delivers the experience diners complain about most: pinch-zooming a letter-size document on a phone. If your only goal is to stop handing out paper, this works. It won't sell a single extra dish, and updating it means re-exporting and re-uploading the file every time a price moves.
$20–$70/month: self-serve QR menu builders
This is the bulk of the market. You get a template, an editor, and a QR code, and you do all the work: entering every dish, uploading every photo, keeping it current. Prices climb with tiers — photos on one plan, ordering on another, multiple locations on a third. Budget real time here rather than money; the software is cheap and your evenings aren't.
$100–$300/month: done-for-you and video menus
At this level someone else builds the menu from what you already have, and the menu can carry video rather than just text and photos. Content production may be included or billed per shoot — worth asking, because a separate food video shoot is often $500–$2,000 on its own. HeyPlates sits at the bottom of this band: a flat $100 a month per live menu, unlimited dishes, with the build done for you.
The costs nobody puts on the pricing page
Reprinting is the obvious one — a menu redesign and print run is a few hundred dollars and a week of wrong prices while it's at the printer. The bigger one is invisible: every diner who ordered the familiar dish instead of the one you make money on, because they couldn't picture it. That's a nightly cost, it doesn't show up on any invoice, and it's usually larger than whatever you're paying for menu software.
What to actually compare
Ask four questions of anything you're considering. Does the price change when you add a second location, dishes, or photos? Who does the setup work — you or them? Can you change a price yourself in under a minute, or do you file a request? And does the menu show the food, or only describe it? Those four answers explain nearly every price difference in the category.
See what $100 a month actually gets you.
Send us the menu you're using today and we'll build the video version for free so you can see it before deciding anything. Flat $100/month per restaurant.
Common questions
Is a digital menu cheaper than printing?
Almost always, once you count reprints. A single menu redesign and print run typically costs more than a year of menu software, and printed menus are wrong the moment a price or dish changes.
Are free QR menu generators good enough?
They're fine for producing the QR code itself — that part is genuinely free, and we give one away too. What's behind the code is the question. A free code pointing at a PDF is still a PDF.
How much does food videography cost separately?
A standalone food video shoot commonly runs $500–$2,000 depending on how many dishes and how much styling. Some menu services include filming, which is usually the cheaper route if you need both.
What does HeyPlates cost?
A flat $100 per month per live menu, with unlimited dishes and categories, and the build done for you. Creating and previewing a menu is free — you pay when it goes live.