The menu pricing formula for Indian restaurants, with ₹ examples.

That is the whole formula. Decide what share of the menu price you are willing to spend on the food itself — in India, casual dining runs at 28–35%, cafés and QSRs a little under, fine dining up to 40% — and divide each dish's ingredient cost by it.

Illustrative recipe costs for a mid-city casual restaurant; your own numbers go in the second column. The menu prices are the ones on the sample menu in the register clips on this site.

Notice what the table already shows: the bread and the drinks carry the curry. That is not a mistake — it is how every Indian menu works, and knowing it is the difference between a discount on naan (harmless) and a discount on Butter Chicken (expensive).

The formula is only as good as the cost you put in, and the cost most owners put in is the raw ingredient bill divided by the number of plates they hope to get. Cost it the way the kitchen actually runs:

• Yield, not purchase weight. A kilo of chicken is not a kilo of curry — bones, trim and shrinkage take 25–35%. Cost the cooked yield.
• The gravy base. Cost the pot of makhani base once (tomatoes, butter, cream, cashew, gas) and divide by the ladles it gives. Every dish on that base shares it.
• The things nobody counts. Oil, ghee, spices, salt, the papad and the onion salad on the side, packaging for parcels. Add 8–10% to the ingredient line for them until you have measured.
• Waste. The last three plates of the day that get thrown out are part of the cost of the first twenty. A 5% waste allowance is honest for a curry house.

Keep these costs in a sheet for now — the dashboard has no cost field per dish yet, so the menu report's profit axis is coming rather than here. Its popularity axis and its "never ordered" list work today, which is where the next section comes from.

Half the food is not half the cost. The gas is the same, the cook's ten minutes are the same, the plate and the wash are the same; only the chicken halves. So a Half at 50% of the Full price loses money on every order, and a Half at 65–75% of Full — ₹290 against ₹410 — makes money and still reads as a deal. The guest who orders Half would mostly have skipped the dish at the Full price; the Half is extra sales.

The register should make the portion a one-tap choice with both prices visible, so the cashier never has to remember which is which — and the KOT should say "Half" next to the dish, not in the notes.

Most Indian menus show prices before tax and the bill adds 5% GST — 2.5% CGST plus 2.5% SGST, on separate lines. That is what guests expect and what keeps the printed price a round number. An inclusive menu is legal too, as long as the slip still shows the tax; just remember the tax is not yours. An inclusive ₹410 is ₹390.48 of revenue and ₹19.52 for the government, so the food-cost sum has to use ₹390, not ₹410.

The register applies whichever slab you attach to the dish — 5% for most restaurants, 18% inside pricier hotels, or none if you are under the threshold — and freezes it onto each sale, so a slab change next month never rewrites last month's bills. The GST post covers the rates and the ₹20 lakh threshold.

The delivery apps take a commission on the food value, charge 18% GST on that commission, deduct packaging, and often expect you to fund the discount that got the order. The platform fee the guest sees (₹17.58 an order on both apps since March 2026) is paid by the guest, not by you — but everything else is. Work one dish through it:

Commission and packaging figures are the ranges reported publicly in 2026; the 5% GST on the food itself is paid by the platform under section 9(5) and is not in this table. Your own settlement statement is the number that counts — read one line by line once.

The same plate at the table leaves ₹285 after food cost. That is why a dish can be a star in the dining room and a loss on delivery, and why the app price is often set higher than the table price. Know the number before deciding either way.

Once every dish has a cost and the register has a month of real sales, sort the menu two ways at once: how often a dish sells, and how much it makes per plate.

• Stars — popular and profitable. Protect them: never discount them, put them top-right on the menu, keep the recipe stable.
• Plowhorses — popular, thin margin. The Butter Chicken at 30% food cost that everyone orders. Nudge the price ₹10–20, or trim the portion honestly, or pair it with a high-margin side.
• Puzzles — profitable, rarely ordered. Rename, reposition, have the waiter suggest it. Or accept it is a menu decoration.
• Dogs — unpopular and unprofitable. Take them off. Every dish on the menu is a stock line and a training line; a dog costs more than it earns even at zero sales.

EasyKOT's dashboard draws the popularity half of this from your own sales and lists what was never ordered in the period — the dogs name themselves. The profit half needs a cost per dish, and there is no way to type one in yet; until there is, the sheet from the costing section is the profit axis. The point of the formula at the top is to get the first price right; the point of the report is to keep it right as the room changes.